Unforeseen Past
by theonlymedic
Summary: "Iggy's life is about to be changed forever when 'normal' fifteen-year-old Byron is placed under the Martinez's care. What is the secret that Byron cannot remember? And how will it effect the rest of the Flock? Review Please!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Maximum Ride series. James Patterson does. All I own is the plot and my OC Byron Hadley!**

Unforeseen Past – Chapter One

Hi, I am Byron Hadley and I am your average 15-year-old kid; good grades, fairly athletic and pretty shy. The only remarkable thing about my life was that my parents were not related to me. My biological parents died in a house fire; at least, that is what Child Protective Services told me. My foster family was great; Stan and Linda Michaels treated me as if I was their birth son. They did not have any other sons or daughters, so my home life was uneventful. My father, Stan worked for the CIA and sometimes left for classified missions abroad. Linda usually stayed home and worried about either Stan or I. She especially worries about me after I came home one day with a black eye; courtesy of Mitch Bullman, the local school bully. After that day, my father decided to teach me what he knew about self-defense. After that, Mitch left me alone, since he tried to bully me again and he ended up on his stomach his arm bent behind his back. I had a great time with the Michaels, I truly felt accepted by them.

That all changed the day I got home from school and found both a CIA car and Child Protective Services parked in my driveway. I walked through the front door to find my mother was crying her eyes out and CIA was failing to comfort her. I slowly put two and together; something awful had happened to Stan during one of his classified missions and I was being put back into the foster care system that I was being taken from my one true home.

The CPS agent walked up to me and said with passion dripping from her words, "I'm so sorry Byron, but Mrs. Michaels no longer has the means to fully care for you to the standard we need."

I just somewhat blankly nodded at her and went to hug my mom. I walked up to the CIA agent, Jackson; I remembered his name; as my father had taken me to the CIA several times. "What happened to my father?" I choked out.

Jackson looked at me and his story began. "Well your father was investigating a medical company known as Genetics Research Inc. GCI. We lost contact with him 12 hours ago. We received a fax with a picture of him holding today's newspaper and a single bullet to the head." At those words, my mother just broke down sobbing and I realized that my days with one of the only families I have truly loved were ending.

I whispered to my mother, "I am so sorry." I then turned to the Child Services agent and asked her, "What happens now?"

She looked at me sadly and said, "I'm sorry Byron, but we already found you a new home to live in. I met the people there and they are very nice, so you don't have to worry." I nodded, hugged my mother, and went upstairs to pack my belongings while thinking about the life I'm leaving behind.

Jackson followed me upstairs to my room and told me, "If such an event were to ever happen to your father, he asked me to tell you that he loves you very much and he wanted you to have these." Jackson then pulled out my father's combat knife and his tactical sling bag, two of the many things that my father's own that is quite admirable.

I looked at Jackson with gratitude, "Thanks for these, I really appreciate this." Jackson just smiled, nodded his head solemnly, and turned to head back downstairs.

I sighed sadly and quickly packed most of my clothing and belongings into my duffel and my father's bag and headed back downstairs where Jackson, my mom, and the Child Services agent were waiting.

I gazed at my mom's tear streaked face and it hit me that I was leaving her all alone with no husband and no son to care for her. If I know my mom, she needs a loving family to survive. She has always been that type of mother and I loved her for that.

I pulled my mom into a tight bear hug and told her, "If you ever need a shoulder or anything, you have my cell phone number." She forced a smile, nodded, and picked up something from the coffee table. It was a small photograph of Stan, Linda and I all dressed up for a dinner, one of my favorite pictures of the three of us together. I smiled at her and immediately put the picture into my wallet. I hugged her again for a long length of time. We both had tears streaming down our faces from Stan's unexpected death and my departure from my only true home I've come to know.

After our family mourning moment, I turned to face the Child Services agent. "When do I leave?" I asked.

She looked at me and said, "One moment please." She pulled out her cell phone and dialed some number; apparently, the person on the other end of the line picked up because she asked a couple of questions and then hung up.

She turned back to me and said, "Now, if you are ready." I nodded to her and grabbed my stuff from upstairs. I pulled my mom into one final, teary hug. Neither of us said goodbye to the other. It seemed too final to say aloud. After our goodbye hug, I told the agent I am ready.

I followed her out to her car and waved to my mother one last time before getting in. She sadly waved back then moved away from the window. I didn't have to see her to know she was crying. I knew her most of my life so I know a lot of little things about her. I slammed the car door shut and asked, "How far away is my new home?"

She immediately answered, "Only 10-15 minutes from here." I felt overjoyed because if I ever needed to I could still visit and help Linda. I nodded and reluctantly motioned for her to drive.

After two minutes, she began speaking. "Your new family consists of a veterinarian by the name of Dr. Valencia Martinez and her twelve year old daughter, Ella." She talked for the rest of the ride about my new family. I tuned out after a minute of talking. I was too sad to do anything but think about Stan and Linda, the parents that had been ripped out of my life before my very eyes.

As we pulled up in front of their house that had a small woodland on one side, Dr. Martinez and Ella opened the door and walked out to greet us. We met halfway between car and the door and I visually threat assessed Dr. Martinez and her daughter (a habit I picked up from my father). They seemed friendly and kind. I thought that maybe I would accepted by this family as I was with the Michaels.

"Hello Byron, I'm Valencia Martinez, and this is my daughter, Ella." Dr. Martinez introduced herself and her daughter. Her daughter smiled hugely at me and waved.

"Hey Byron, I'm Ella. I'm so glad you're finally here! Let me show you your new room," Ella said and grabbed my hand. I noticed that Ella had a lot of spunk. As I was pulled away from the Child Services agent and Dr. Martinez, I saw Dr. Martinez shaking her head with a smile.

"Don't go too hard on him, Ella. You have enough energy to drown the world, and I don't want Byron to pass out from shock on his first day here." Dr. Martinez said, and I chuckled. I made a final decision and decided they were a very nice family. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all.

*Three Months Later*

After we got home from school, Ella and I started eating a snack in the kitchen when the phone rang. Ella jumped out of her seat ran to pick up the phone with more spunk than the average chipmunk.

When she saw the caller ID, she squealed with happiness. I sort of eavesdropped and heard Ella talk excitedly into the phone, "That's awesome Max; I cannot wait to see you again! ...When? ...tomorrow? *squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee*...alright...bye."

I stared at her puzzled and she seemed to notice my confused face and started having one of her talking fits, "Oh, my half-sister Max is coming over to stay for a while. You'll love her! She's hilarious and really cool. Just don't get on her bad side. She's tougher than she looks, and she looks tough, and she will kick your butt into next week. Just be warned." I nodded blankly at her and thought to myself, _great, more family to impress_.

Ella again seemed to notice my blank expression as she told me, "I think you and Max will get along quite well." I was not quite positive about her judgment.

What I found interesting is that she hardly knew me for three months and can sometimes just what I am thinking. "Oh that's good I guess..." I managed to somehow articulate as my reply. "When is she arriving?"

"She should be arriving sometime after school tomorrow. Oh, I better get my room ready for her!" Ella responded excitedly and she ran upstairs. I shook my head in wonder. How can a twelve-year-old girl have so much energy?

*The Next Day*

School rushed by in a blur, as I was somewhat excited and nervous to meet Ella's half-sister. When Ella told Dr. Martinez that Max was coming to stay, she was overjoyed as much as Ella was, so I guess they do not see Max that often, which is pretty unfortunate, since Ella seems to love Max to the bottom of her heart.

As Ella and I walked home from school, I could tell Ella was just dying to see Max because she was very nearly sprinting home. I even had quite a bit of trouble keeping up with her. When we got home and walked into the kitchen, Dr. Martinez told us Max wasn't here yet. Ella seemed to deflate a little at the news.

We sat down on the couch watching television, waiting for Max to arrive. I could tell Ella was anxious since she kept bouncing up and down on the cushion we were sitting on.

"Ella, if you keep bouncing like this I think I'm going to be sent up into the air from the bouncing cushions." I told her, and she stopped and smiled at me.

"I'm sorry! I'm just so anxious! I haven't seen Max in like _forever!"_ Ella exclaimed, and then there was finally a knock on the door.

Ella squealed and I winced at her high-pitched voice. "She's here she's here!" she yelled in excitement and sprinted to the door. I braced myself to meet her half sister as she opened the front door.

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	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I still do not own the Maximum Ride series. James Patterson however still does. However, the plot and the OC Byron Hadley are mine.

Chapter 2:

_Ella squealed and I winced at her high-pitched voice. "She's here she's here!" she yelled in excitement and sprinted to the door. I braced myself to meet her half sister as she opened the front door._

I attempted to keep my I-don't-care-attitude plastered on my face as I heard Ella squeal with excitement as she bear hugged her half-sister. I felt bad for her half sister. Ella's hugs can hurt sometimes.

I began to peruse the refrigerator and found something I least expected, a heaping plate of homemade chocolate-chip cookies. "Somebody loves me." I told myself. I uncovered the cookies and ate about four at a time while thinking, _Wow these are really good! Let the artery clogging begin!_

I was unaware that Ella was back inside with her half-sister because I turned around and found six kids staring at me with mistrust, analyzing me as if I were a possible threat, kind of like what I did when I first arrived at the Martinez household.

The oldest girl glared at me with her piercing chocolate brown eyes, and when she realized I was eating the cookies, she seemed to explode with anger. "Ella, what the hell is **that dude** doing with my cookies?" the girl yelled. She glared at me more, then something clicked in her brain, "Ella, who is this person and why is he here?" she seethed, and everyone in the room, besides me, took a nervous step back.

"Well…..uh….he is…..umm….." Ella stuttered nervously, as the girl might explode. The girl tapped her foot impatiently, and the atmosphere in the room grew even tenser with nerves. I decided to help Ella out and join the conversation that was going on.

"The name is Byron Hadley and you are…?" I responded coolly. The girl seemed to calm down a bit as the questions were answered, but the undertone of anger and mistrust were definitely still there. I decided to reply to her suspicion with sarcasm. "Well Captain Obvious, **I** am eating these as **I** am hungry." As I shoved another four in my mouth, Ella just shook her head and walked out of the room, muttering something about World War III starting over chocolate chip cookies.

The girl stilled seemed to be angry with me, I cannot imagine why though, we met less than five minutes ago. "Thank you for your precious time Lieutenant Sarcasm, and now I will be taking my cookies!" she replied sarcastically, and then ran forward, grabbed the plate of cookies out of my hand, ran back to the other five kids, and began to inhale them like a vacuum. _I thought __I __was hungry,_ I mused.

I decided that this was as far as this conversation was going to get and left the room so I could begin to enjoy my three-day weekend with some T.V. The rest of the night seemed to pass without incident, which was nice, but I know that it could not last forever.

*Later that night*

Dr. Martinez walked through the front door late at night, threw her vet stuff onto the couch, and let out a long sigh.

"Long day at work today?" I asked, from my position on the couch in the living room playing my video games.

"As usual," she responded, and then she walked into the kitchen to find Max and the other five kids rummaging through the refrigerator for some food. Max immediately brightened when she saw Dr. Martinez walk into the room.

Max ran to give Dr. Martinez a hug and asked, "Hey Mom! I missed you. What do you want to do for dinner tonight?"

Dr. Martinez looked at them and back at my general direction, and then said, "How does pizza sound to everyone?" At those words, all the little kids cheered and started chatting excitedly about what kind of pizza they wanted and how much.

Dr. Martinez grabbed the phone and a pad of paper._ How much pizza are getting, if she has to write it down?_ I wondered. After much debating, Dr. Martinez ended up ordering about eight to nine large pizzas. After she hung up the phone, she called Ella down and then proceeded to herd everyone into the living room. I looked heart-broken as Dr. Martinez flipped out the television and told everyone to have a seat while we wait for the pizzas.

After five minutes, everyone got seated on various couches around the room and wore the same look of confusion at Dr. Martinez's request. "How was the flight, Max?" she asked Max.

"Alright, I guess, nothing too horrible." Max replied to her reluctantly, as if she didn't want to talk about it right now.

At that Dr. Martinez let out a sigh of relief and proceeded, "I bet everyone is interested in who this is." She gestured to me like a museum exhibit. I felt a little uneasy everyone's attention snapped to me in an instant, not all of the expressions on their faces pleasant. *Coughs* Max *coughs.*

The dark-skinned girl spoke up with an energy I have only seen with Ella, which really says something right there. "Oh, I know, I know! That is Byron Hadley, and we met in the kitchen while he was eating Max's cookies. Max wasn't really happy about that, but I found it funny that when we get here Max's favorite thing in the world was being eaten by someone else. Of course, I wouldn't be too happy if someone was eating my food either. Speaking of food I'm hungry. When will-"

The tall blonde kid with cloudy gray-blue eyes covered her mouth to stop her from talking. Dr. Martinez took that as her signal to continue. "His name is Byron Hadley, and we offered to give him a home, as his previous foster father was murdered." She said with sympathy. I looked straight ahead and wiped all emotion from my face, and the dark haired boy that Max was sharing a chair with had nearly the same expression on his face. Actually, he had the same expression on all day. I wondered if he ever expressed any emotion at all.

The little kids looked sympathetic, too and Max spoke up as to brake the sad mood, "Well, I guess now it's the time to introduce ourselves. I'm Max, this is Nick, that's Jeff, Tiffany, Jason, and Ariel," motioning to each of them in turn.

I nodded and got back on topic, "Yeah, my previous foster father was murdered and Child Protective Services determined that my foster mother was no longer able to support me and Dr. Martinez allowed me into her home." I smiled at Dr. Martinez. She smiled back at me, and Max glared at me for no particular reason. I'm starting to think that she's like this all of the time.

Just then the doorbell rang, and I got up to answer the door to pay for the pizza. The other kids flooded to the table in hunger and I paid the pizza guy who looked overwhelmed with nine pizzas to carry. I shut the door and brought the pizzas to the table.

"Finally the pizza's here. I'm starving!" Tiffany said and grabbed a pizza from my hands and started devouring with almost sickening speed. The other five kids followed Tiffany's lead. _Are these kids normal? They each ate an entire large pizza by themselves, even the seven-year-old. _

I finished what I was going to eat and began to put what was left of the pizza that Ella and I shared in the refrigerator I could eat it later tonight at say nine to ten. After dinner was over, the rooms were divided among us so that Nick, Jeff, Jason, and I shared one room and Max, Tiffany, Ella and Ariel shared another. We trudged off to bed without a word spoken between any of us and I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing I was aware of when I opened my eyes was Ella's enthusiastic squealing from downstairs. I sat up; running a hand through my sleep tousled blonde hair and sighed. Contrary to my currently hyperactive adoptive sisters beliefs, Max and I had the relationship of two cranky grizzly bears. The only good thing that had come out of her stay so far was the increase in chocolate chip cookies to steal. Also, the fact that Max had five other kids staying with her who all looked like they had been on the run kind of freaked me out.

It was not as if I had not been exposed to some weird things in my time being the son of a CIA agent but these kids just were not normal. For one they could each eat a whole pizza by themselves, even the six year old. Max seemed to have a very unreasonable hatred for me and the other kids, especially Nick, were acting as if I did not exist. Also, call me paranoid, but I do not think those were their real names. I had heard more than one of them stubble over them.

Deciding to leave the mysteries of life until after breakfast, I swung my feet out of bed and headed toward the door, almost tripping over the shoes I had left lying on the floor. I slipped on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt before hastening down the stairs. Wafting up from the kitchen was the smell of waffles, beacon, and …smoke? Quickening my steps, I found Max and Jeff standing over the stove while the former _attempted _to make breakfast. She was scowling fiercely and muttering something under her breath.

Jeff sighed good-naturedly, "Really Max, drop it. We all know you cannot cook. Just eat some of the stuff that's already made."

She turned on him, glaring, "Says the blind guy. And I can cook things, just not toast."

So Jeff was blind, he certainly did not act like it. As far as I could tell last night, he was more coordinated then says, Ella. He laughed, "Max if you can't make toast you can't make anything. And for your information, _I _was the one who made the edible food. Why don't you just go and get up Nudge and we can eat."

Who was Nudge? Was their suddenly another kid adding to the gang since I had last seen them, or was that one of their real names?

Max stuck out her tongue and headed right towards me. I quickly flattened myself against the wall, for some reason I did not want her to know I had been, hem hem….eavesdropping. She turned into the stairwell without even noticing me and I let out a sigh. Waiting a few minutes to make it seem more realistic, I entered the kitchen and gave Jeff a wave before remembering that, duh, he was blind. "Morning Jeff," I put on my best, 'I just woke up' voice, which was not hard since I did, and sat down at the table. "Where's everyone else?"

He turned to me, "Still sleeping, the lazies, I've never known G-Jason to get up before ten."

There it was that slight hesitation. So Jason's real name started with a G, maybe George? Then again if one of the girls names was Nudge then who knew. I was just about to ask him to tell me the names of the others, see if he slipped up, when the dark skinned girl, was not her name tiffany?, walked in rubbing her cocoa colored eyes. "Hi Jeff, please say you make breakfast. I don't think anything Max makes is edible. Do we get to go to school here? I hope so, I mean it was kind of a disaster last time but I am we would be fine this time right? I bet I'd make lots of friend sinc-," she was cut off as Jeff rapped a hand around her mouth.

I rolled my eyes, how come some people at their best at seven in the morning? It goes against human nature. Then I processed what she had said, 'Do we _get_ to go to school?' as in they didn't normally? This group of kid was messed up. They were _way_ to close to be just school friends but they looked nothing like (except for the two little ones who could have been siblings) so they could not all be siblings. If Dr. Martinez was some kind of super child helper who had adopted all of them, I think I would have heard about it and none of them except Max called her Mom. However, they all seemed very comfortable so it was not as if they had not been here before. Then there was the fact that they were all tall, rod thin, eat tons, and seemed (from what I had seen when Arial carried all nine pizzas by herself) super strong.

Jeff could not have seen my expression but he seemed to sense it. He grabbed tiffany by the arm and proceeded to push her up the stairs, "go wake up the others, I'm hungry." Then busied himself setting the table that was already set. I gave him a hard look then moved to the living room were a soccer game was playing on the TV. I flopped on the brown and red fuzzy coach and listened closely to what was going on in the kitchen. Max had come down again and talking with Nick and Jeff in quiet voices.

"He's becoming—"

"I think he caught Nud—blunder"

"—what?"

"She—school, and stut-my name."

"That's not enou- to-anything"

"I'm telling you he's been watching us."

"We have to leave soon."

I could only catch snippets of their conversation but I could pretty much fill in the blanks.

"_He's becoming suspicious."_

"_I think he caught Nudge's blunder."_

"_About what?"_

"_She mentioned school and stuttered over my name."_

"_That's not enough to prove anything."_

"_I'm telling you he's been watching us."_

"_We have to leave soon."_

The last line was followed by sounds of agreement from Max and Jeff. So they did have something to hide. It seemed like Ella and Dr. Martinez knew so what was so important they couldn't tell their adopted son? This new house was becoming more and more interesting.

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	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer – Still do not own Max Ride. James Patterson still does. All I own is my OC, Byron Hadley.

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I was astounded that my adopted family would be hiding something from me, something that would force Max and her group to leave just because they do not want me to find out. I decided that the only way to find out was to confront either Dr. Martinez or Ella. I am pretty sure that if I asked Max she would a) hate me even more and b) punch me for prying into their lives. I managed to find Ella alone in her room since, Dr. Martinez took Max and her group out to the mall for new clothes. The clothes those kids wore seemed to be old and worn out way past their usefulness.

"Hey Ella." I began, "Why does Max hate me and Fang attempt to kill with his glares?"

Ella attempted to clear away the look on her face that says 'I know their secret!', "I not really sure why Byron, Why don't we talk it over with Max and my mom when they get back from the mall."

I nodded and decided not to call her bluff. I sat back down on the couch and decided to play Mafia II until they returned from the mall, which on the weekend could take awhile.

*Four Hours Later*

After four hours of being a 1950s gangster running around a Thompson, attempting to evade the police, I heard a car pull into the driveway. I shut off the Xbox, walked into the kitchen, and near instantaneously found the plate of chocolate-chip cookies in the refrigerator. I briefly contemplated why I had not started eating these four hours ago. The door opened and in walked Dr. Martinez and Max with the rest of her 'siblings'. She saw me leaning against the counter eating the cookies and glared at me. I smirked at her and ate another one just to annoy her.

After they left to finish putting away their new clothes, Ella came down and also started eating the cookies until we finished them off. I surreptitiously slid the empty plate back into the fridge. Ella shot me a questioning glance. "It will annoy Max to no end."

She looked at me like I was an idiot, "I am trying to get her to accept you, is that really the smartest thing?" I shrugged, she left it at that and left the kitchen. I looked in the fridge again and found a can of root beer; I grabbed it and went to go find Ella.

I found Ella back in her room, so I sat on her bed and chugged the root beer. From downstairs, we both heard a yell, "Where are all the cookies, BYRON!"

Ella and I shared a glance, "Ok, maybe not annoy her, but anger her." I said casually. We heard someone sprint up the stairs and enter my room, apparently looking for me.

Max's head peered into Ella's room and her face contorted into anger as she found me on Ella's bed. "You!" She spat. Ella got off her computer, went over to her door, shut, and locked it. Max shot her a glance of confusion. Ella motioned for Max to be quiet and to sit in her spare chair.

Ella decided to start the conversation, "Max, why are you so mean to Byron? He has done nothing to you."

Max sighed and replied, "He has no right to know."

Were they stupid or something? I mean, I was sitting right there. "Uh, sitting right here. Right to know what?" I probed.

Max set her jaw and shook her head firmly at Ella. "He HAS a right to know. He is family, Max. We do not keep secrets from each other." Ella said almost pleadingly. Max did not respond, she simply got up hurriedly, unlocked the door and left. As she slammed the door, I noticed something that caught in the whirlwind of her expedient departure. A single feather slowly drifted towards the ground. Ella stared at the feather with a look of pure fear, as I picked the feather and exited the room.

I spent the next couple of hours researching what kind of feather I had found. Amazingly, the internet did not have the answer. It told me what type of bird has these feathers, a peregrine falcon; but the feather I found in Ella's room is much too big to be off a falcon. I did not get the chance to ponder the mystery any further as Dr. Martinez yelled that it was time for dinner. I put the feather on my desk and headed downstairs.

As we ate dinner, which happened to be some of the best Mexican food I have ever eaten, Max abruptly spoke up, "Mom, we need to leave soon." Dr. Martinez's face fell and she noticed that Max kept shooting little glances at me.

Dr. Martinez practically exploded, "WAIT, this has something to do with Byron doesn't it?"

Max looked down at the table and spoke again, "Mom, it's not safe for us here."

Dr. Martinez looked beyond furious, "Its not about anyone's safety, it's about Byron! Don't lie to me." At this point, everyone had pretty much stopped eating and was watching the fight between Max and her mom.

Suddenly the phone rang in the kitchen and Dr. Martinez went to answer it. She came back looking a little calmer and addressed us all, "Jeb is coming over to talk." _Jeb._ I had heard that name before. I walked back into the kitchen and put my dishes into the sink. I quickly went upstairs and dug out my father's tactical sling bag. I ripped it open and found the file detailing my father's last mission. It started skimming the file again, as I had most of it memorized. I stopped when I found the part stating that a scientist named Jeb Batchelder, works for Genome Research Inc. The file went on to state that the lab was rumored to perform inhuman genetic experiments.

I looked at the feather sitting on my desk and suddenly it clicked….

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	5. Chapter 5

Unforeseen Past – Chapter 5

Disclaimer: James Patterson owns the Maximum Ride Series; all I own is my OC and the plot. I really got to start adding these to every chapter….

I apologize about the slowness of my update. I had spring break at my school and my mind sorta blanked….. This is chapter is 12 pages counted by Word, so I hope this makes up for the lack of updates.

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_I looked at the feather sitting on my desk and suddenly it clicked…._

Max and her group must be part of the illegal genetic experiments. It is the only way that all the secrecy, the feather, and Jeb coming here; fits together. I felt incredibly stupid for taking so long to figure it out. Wait, if Jeb is coming here that means he is connected to my father's murder. An ominous thought just went through my mind; _he wants to finish the job._

I instantly started freaking out. I was living in the same house with six illegal genetic experiments who both knew Ella and Dr. Martinez and I was kept in the dark probably for one important reason; to be silenced. I frantically attempted to calm myself down and rationally think about what I could do to keep myself alive. I decided that it was best for me to just leave this place and not return. Yet again, I could possibly be overreacting, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

I heard Max, her group, Ella and Dr. Martinez still arguing so I knew that they were still here and probably would for while. I ran around the room gathering the essentials I would need to survive on the streets. I had packed my tactical sling bag and secured my combat knife around my leg. I was ready to leave. I grabbed a coil of rope I had and remembering what my father taught me during our rock climbing sessions, began to rig a repel, so I could get out the second story window without anyone noticing.

I felt sort of bad for abandoning Dr. Martinez and Ella after they had been so kind to me for all of this time. Wait just a second though; they kept a secret from me that could probably cost me my life. Oh, well. That makes us about even then. I spared one more quick glance around the room to make sure I left no evidence besides the repel line.

"Byron, can you come down stairs?" I heard Ella yell. I panicked and quickly threw all my stuff out the window and I cringed at the loud impact of the landing. I then locked the door.

"Hold on one second, I am in the bathroom." I yelled back. I hope that the excuse would buy me a little time. I used the knife to pop out the window screen and placed it next to the bed. At least I did not just cut through it or whatnot. I grabbed my bag and climbed out the window, hoping that my rigging would hold my weight. I managed to repel down to the ground without anything going wrong. _Maybe God loves me today…_I mused. I unclipped from the repel and dropped to the ground. It was only after I had unclipped I remembered that the ground was pure thick mud and ended up slipping and face planting into the mud. _Ok, maybe God just only _likes_ me, not love_. I managed to pick myself and began to sneak away from the house.

After about fifty yards, I broke into a brisk walk and headed for somewhere. After five minutes, I noticed a black SUV headed towards the Martinez and the driver looked curiously like Jeb did. I kept my head down and did not look back. As I walked, I remembered Ella's words on the day I met Max, _"I think you and Max will get along quite well." _Well Ella, some thoughts aren't reality.

*Third Person POV* (at the Martinez house)

Ella tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for Byron to come downstairs. She could still hear Max and her mom still arguing over why Max did not want to tell Byron about herself and the Flock and why did not like Byron in the first place. Max and Dr. Martinez's arguing began to get louder and louder until Ella could easily hear it. "I STILL do not understand why you do not show him any respect!"

It took a moment for Max to respond. "Mom! Do you know what he would do if he found out we had freaking _wings? _Goodbye somewhat normal life, hello Bronx Zoo."

By the sounds of it, Dr. Martinez seemed to be winning the argument, "You do not know that! If you just trusted people for once, you be surprised!"

Max, surprisingly, seemed to back down a little bit. "Alright, mom we will stay and we will tell him. But if he calls us mutant freaks and calls the local zoo, all I'll have to say is I told you so."

Dr. Martinez seemed overjoyed at Max's words. "Ella, could you get Byron down here please?" Ella ran upstairs to fetch Byron and the house fell silent once again. As Ella quickly ran upstairs to fetch Byron she noticed he was not in the bathroom, nor had he been in the bathroom at all in the past few minutes. She panicked and went to check his room and gasped at what she saw. Max must have heard Ella's gasp because Max was in the room in no time flat. The room was pretty empty and the window screen was on the bed. There was rope leading from the leg of the bed, out through the window and down to the ground. The only remarkable thing in the room was the feather that was sitting on the desk. Max caught sight of the feather and a shocked look crossed her face.

*Max POV*

Honestly, I could not really understand what the Mexico was going on here. While arguing with my mom about whether not to tell that Byron kid about our wings, I heard Ella gasp and I ran upstairs like the good little girl I am to see what was going on. When I got to Byron the Great's room, it was remarkably empty and the window screen was lying on the bed with a rope leading out of the window. Oh, I see now. Mr. Perfect just _had _to get away from this place because he was in the wonderful presence of _moi. _Jeez, did we tick each other off that much? That's when I finally saw it, a single feather, and MY feather, should I add, lying on his desk. That put me past my breaking point.

"That little twit! Oh, when he gets back here, he's going to get some serious Max-Kwon-Do." I yelled. _Now _everything clicked. Byron the Great had figured it out all on his merry own. He knew that we were mutant freaks and he left via rope out the window. My mom is going to be devastated that he's gone; she really cared about Byron.

Ella gave me an annoyed look after my little comment. "Max! Byron is gone and all you have to say is that you're going to rough him up?" Ella shrieked. I shrugged nonchalantly, trying to hide the annoying emotions inside of me that include panic and annoyance.

"He took my feather and then he left. If you were me, you'd threaten him too." I said.

"If I were you, I would be threatening the pizza guy every time he gets caught up in traffic." Ella mumbled, and we headed back downstairs. We looked for our mom and we found her with Fang and Jeb.

"Mom, Byron left." I said as emotionless as I could. A shocked/hurt look crossed her face and I felt kind of bad for her, so that says something right there. I don't feel bad for anyone. I just do what I've got to do. I looked at Jeb. Wait, hold on just a darn second; _Jeb_ was here? Oh Lord, just kill me right here and now.

"What do you want now, Jeb?" I said as coldly as I could. Jeb then looked at me and ignored the cold tone in my voice. The nerve of that guy.

"Max, you need to find Byron this instant. He's part of the bigger picture." _Not this crap again! Can't a bird kid ever catch a break these days? _I unexpectedly whirled around on Jeb and slammed him hard into the wall. I smirked at the frightened expression on his face.

"What do you mean part of the bigger picture?" I demanded of him. Jeez, he was really sounding like the Voice right now.

He stuttered out, "You need to find him and bring him back. I promise I will explain everything once you find him and bring him back. I promise." I snorted.

"You promised you would never leave us, and look where we are now." I retorted sarcastically, and I looked at Fang questioningly. He gave one sharp nod, signaling that he agreed that we need to find Byron. I groaned internally. I was on vacation and Jeb had to spoil it by telling me to go rescue Byron the Great, the stealer of my chocolate chip cookies. And besides, I had no idea whatsoever of where to start looking for him.

Jeb, being the annoying know it all that he was, must have noticed my slight frustration. "What is his cell phone number? I can track him through it." I looked at my mom and she quickly gave it to Jeb. I reluctantly released Jeb and he went to his briefcase, pulled out his laptop, and opened a program where he entered the number my mom gave him. After two to four minutes, the computer gave a strange little beep and a map appeared with a little dot that was at a location that was about a fifteen-minute walk from the house. After standing there like an idiot for a few seconds, I realized that the dot was where Mr. Perfect was.

I grabbed my jacket and headed out the door with Fang. Jeb ran to catch us, "Wait, take this, it's a mild sedative." I took it, smiling at the thought of sedating Byron the Great, and shoved the needle into my pocket, even though I HATE needles. I figured Byron might not be too happy to see me. We both took a running start and launched ourselves into the air, our wings propelling us forward into the night.

About two minutes later, we arrived at the location that Byron was supposed to be. "Fang, spread out." He nodded and jogged ahead of me. After three minutes of searching, I had found Byron using my raptor vision eyesight. "Fang," I called, "There he is!" We instantly jogged up to him.

*Byron POV*

Something felt weird even though I made sure that I was not followed. Then I remember my dad told me once that someone could locate you by accessing the SIM card on your phone. I felt stupid that after managing to escape the Martinez' I let a simple thing like that nearly get me caught. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I started disassembling it until I found the SIM card; I pulled the card out of the phone and dropped it into the nearest trashcan. I reassembled the phone and shoved it back it my pocket. I felt better knowing that I probably just avoided a big problem.

That is when all hell broke loose. I felt someone grab my shoulder. I spun around and came face to face with Max and Fang. I am not going to lie; I panicked, broke free of her hold, and broke into a sprint. I thought I was home free….until my face decided to make friends with the solid concrete sidewalk. I struggled as I realized that Max and Fang had caught up with me and tackled me to the ground.

"Get off of me!" I spat. Max looked at me with an annoyed face. "Byron, look I am sorry-"

"Max, you're never sorry." Fang stated, and Max turned to him in annoyance.

"Fang, I was actually putting on a promising act for once! You just _had _to spoil it." Max scolded Fang, and he smirked.

"I'm just pointing out the truth." Fang said, and Max faced me in frustration.

"Know what Fang? This never happened. Point is, I'm semi-sorry I was mean to you." Max said, now it was my turn to smirk at her.

"Max, even _I _know that's not true." I pointed out, and she stomped on my foot. I yelped in pain and now Max smirked at me.

"Fine, then let me just say this right now; I _know_ that you know our secret. Can we go back to the house and talk about it?" Max said calmly, and Fang looked at her with shock. _I guess Max does not really ever speak calmly to anyone, _I mused.

"Just leave me alone Max, I will not tell anyone." I replied. I started struggling to get free again and I guess Max also does not take 'no' for an answer because I felt a pin prick in the side of my neck and the world started to spin. I welcomed the blackness as a friend.

I started to come back to consciousness because I heard movement next to me and I struggled to open my eyes. I smelt something really familiar; the wonderful aroma of homemade chocolate chip cookies._ Wait, I am back at the Martinez's house? WAIT just a damn second, they drugged me!_ My brain managed to work out. The taste of the sedative was still on my tongue, it tasted like having copper in your mouth. It was not the most pleasant taste in the world. I finally managed to open my eyes to see Dr. Martinez, Ella, Max, Fang, and Jeb standing around me. It was then I noticed that I was tied to a chair. I pulled at my bindings and realized that it was a futile effort. I hung my head in shame, that I had been caught. I decided to play the innocent card.

I looked Dr. Martinez and smiled weakly. "Dr. Martinez, I'm sorry that I tried to run away; after what you have done for me." She nodded, accepting my apology.

"It's fine Byron, don't worry about it." Dr. Martinez said, and Max looked relieved that her mom was not angry with her or me.

"Byron, I am sorry-" she started to say before I cut her off.

"Max, whatever it is I already know you're not sorry." I retorted, and she stomped on the ground in frustration.

"Let me speak, will ya?" she snarled at me, and then continued harshly, "Look, we shouldn't have kept our wings a secret from you. I should have trusted you like my mom did." My eyes must have popped out of their sockets. WINGS! Max looked a little confused, so that meant I probably should explain.

"Look, you all know that my father was murdered by Genome Research Inc." I started; they nodded. "Well, I began to notice things about Max and her group. She did not like me, all of them were secretive; just little things like that. It was when Ella decided to intervene and tried to persuade Max to tell me; Max rushed out the room and in the process of doing so, a feather fell out of Max's shirt and landed on the ground. I did so research on the internet and found that the feather belonged to a peregrine falcon. The feather looked to be too big for a falcon though. During dinner, Dr. Martinez mentioned that Jeb was going to be stopping by. I left dinner early to go through my father's mission file and noticed that Jeb is connected to Genome Research Inc. I also remembered that GRI was rumored to perform inhuman genetic experiments. I put two and two together and got four."

Jeb looked impressed; Max looked annoyed that I was smart enough to put two and two together; Ella looked saddened that I found out this way.

"We didn't want you to find out about us this way. Actually, _I _didn't want you to find out in anyway." Max said, and then Dr. Martinez butted in.

"We were discussing whether or not to tell you." She said with a kind smile. I smiled a little sheepishly.

I cleared my throat and said, "Well, I know now. Why could you not tell me? Did you think I would not accept you, or think that you were mutant freaks?" At those words, Dr. Martinez stiffened slightly and Max yelled smugly, "I told you so!"

"So that _is_ the reason…." I voiced, "I understand why you did it. I do not understand why _he_ is here though." I nodded towards Jeb.

Max also looked towards Jeb, but glared at him coldly rather than just glance. "Actually I am not sure either; he _promised_ he would explain everything once we found you." Max said harshly. Well obviously, they do not have a close relationship with each other.

I looked at Jeb, "Well….." I trailed off and gave a nod, indicating that he had some explaining to do.

He cleared his throat, "Well, now that you know that Max and her group are genetic hybrids." Max shot him a look that looked like it could kill. "That saves a little time. The fact of the matter is I had nothing to do with your father's death. But when I heard of your father's death, I 'persuaded' Child Protective Services to house you here." I looked at him with confusion. He seemed to understand my, Max's and Fang's confusion as well because he continued, "I have no easy way of saying this so…I housed you here because you are also a genetic experiment." My mind blanked. _Wait, WHAT. I cannot be an experiment. He is lying. _

My brain seemed to have rebooted and I noticed that everyone was just as surprised as I was. "You're lying to me." I managed to stutter out.

He looked at me with an apologetic face, "I am not lying to you. Your role in the experiment was to see how well a person with one percent avian DNA could do. No wings, just hollow bones and air sacs."

Max seemed to recover first, "Fang go find the Flock, we need to re-introduce ourselves." Fang nodded and left. After a couple of minutes, he returned with the others. Max spoke up, "Everyone we need to tell Byron the truth. Jeb says he is an experiment as well." Everyone seemed shocked but quickly recovered. Then they started to introduce themselves.

Fang stepped forward, "My name is Fang." Then he stepped back. Well, obviously he was not much of a talker.

The tall blonde kid spoke up next, "My name is Iggy, so yeah. I am blind. I can cook, pick locks, and love explosives."

The dark-skinned girl went next with a big smile on her face "Well, I'm Nudge! I'm the fashion diva in the flock _and _I can draw metal to me, oh, I forgot the word to it! What was it? Oh, um, it was, um, ahh I forget! Well, I can hack into just about _anything_. Oh, this one time I hacked into this guy's facebook account, and he had over 800 friends! There's no way he could know all of those people! What if one of his facebook friends was a creepy stalker guy? Well that wouldn't be very good. He could like stalk you to the nearest Taco Bell and steal all of your tacos. Oh, one time we went to Taco Bell and there was this guy working at the register, and he was on facebook! There was this girl up on his screen, and he was just gawking at it while we were waiting to order. Max got annoyed though and yelled at him to take our order. Before he shut it though I saw the picture of the girl he had up on his screen. She was kind of pretty but was kind of fat too, judging by her profile picture. Speaking about profile pictures, I don't get why people feel like they have to put this super crazy pose for the picture. It's like, just smile and say cheese! Speaking of cheese, I'm starving. Can we order some pizza now before I collapse from hunger?" Nudge said and looked up to an amused Dr. Martinez.

"Sure, why not? I'll order it when we're done here." Dr. Martinez said. I stared open mouthed at Nudge as se backed away on to the couch. In case you were wondering, that was 238 words in less than a _minute _and we went from the topic of "Hello I'm Nudge" to "I'm hungry." Max noticed my shock and she smirked.

"Well that's Nudge for you." Max said like it made _all _the sense in the world.

The little blonde boy went next, "My name is Gazzy. I can throw voices and mimic anyone. This is my little sister Angel. She can-" Angel cut her brother off.

"I can read and control minds, talk to fish, breathe underwater, shape shift, and can predict the future." Angel said sweetly. I was certainly having an interesting day, finding out that the people you are living with are genetic hybrids and that they have powers. In addition, I am apparently an experiment as well. I seemed to digest this.

"What about the feather I found?" I asked uncertainly, having a bad feeling I already know who it belongs to.

Max rolled her eyes and her expression shot daggers at me. "That would be my feather." She rolled her shoulders, shrugged off her coat, and unfurled a pair of, as much I don't want to say it, beautiful wings. I stood there awkwardly for a second or two, until I decided to speak.

"Well…okay then." I managed to start. "Well, where does this leave me?" Jeb looked at me then at Iggy then at Max.

Jeb then said, "Well, almost everything is out in the open; I want to complete the gene splice and give you wings, Byron." Again with the mind shutdown. This Jeb guy is brutally honest, never sugarcoats anything does he? No wonder Max does not like him; he is too honest.

Then my brain decided to pick up the subtle keywords and my mouth decided to act, "Wait, almost everything? What is that supposed to mean?" Did I even want to know? Well, too late now.

Jeb looked nervous and then spoke, "Well Byron, well you see, um Iggy, he is, ah, your brother." Well _that _brought up a big reaction in not just me, but everyone else in the room. Especially Iggy and Nudge.

"OMG really? Byron and Iggy are brothers? Wow, we're going to have another set of siblings in the flock! How cool is that? Why didn't you ever tell us Jeb? This is like, unbelievable? Why didn't you ever tell Iggy about this? Byron is like, his only blood family. Speaking of Byron, he's standing there like a rock. Oh, and Iggy is standing still like a rock too! Wow, who ever knew that news this big would get 2 brothers to stand still like that? If I was told Byron was _my _brother I would probably shriek and jump on him. Well, that's just me. If I saw Taylor Swift performing live and I saw her, I'd probably launch myself at her and give her a big hug and beg her for her autograph. Oh, did I mention how much I love Taylor Swift? She's like, the best! All her songs are the best! It's so _hard _to choose one favorite! I think my favorite would be _Our Song_ or _Picture to Burn_. Oh, or maybe _Mine_. Know what, it's just too hard to pick, so I'll just say _all _of her songs are my favorite. Oh, do you know who else is good? I don't know the name of this band, but they're like, the best! Well, fourth to Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, and Jonas Brothers. I hear them all the time coming from Fang's iPod! The singer is a really talented girl, and the lyrics to one of their songs go something like _Wake me up inside, wake me up inside, call my name and save me from the dark-"_

"Nudge, the band is called Evanescence. I don't even know how you can compare them to Justin Beaver. He sucks." Fang said, and Nudge continued. I have to say, I was very appreciative for Nudge's very long interruption.

"Justin Bieber is the best next to Taylor Swift. Even Jonas Brothers and that band Evanescence can't compare to Justin Bieber. Okay, back to the point. I honestly can_not _believe Iggy is Byron's brother." Nudge concluded. Queue the welcoming darkness.

*Max POV*

Jeb looked nervous, "Well…..um…. Iggy…he…..ah….is your brother." I was uber pissed that Jeb would keep us, keep _Iggy,_ in the dark like that. Apparently, Iggy felt the same way because after Nudge's super long speech no one dared to interrupt, he had Jeb slammed into the wall.

"WHAT? He is my brother and you never told me?" Iggy spat in Jeb's face. Iggy punched Jeb in the stomach and stormed out.

_Huh, he is taking this so well!_ I thought sarcastically.

"Fang, go after him." I pretty much pushed Fang out the door. I turned around to Jeb, who was on the ground from the force of Iggy's punch. I turned around to see Byron and he was passed out, the only thing keeping him in the chair was the ropes around his wrists. I couldn't help but feel smug that Iggy was still up and going but Byron the Great was passed out on a chair.

I managed to pull Jeb upright again and he looked downright ashamed. He should be. I could not imagine what Iggy is going through. Well, I kind of had an idea since Jeb never told me that he was my dad and that Dr. Martinez was my mom and Ella was my half-sister. But right now we're talking about a downright brother who you share the bird gene with and were living under the same roof without knowing it.

My mom seemed to have better control of the situation as she was attempting to wake Byron. To my disappointment, he seemed to come around pretty quickly. Huh, what do you know? Mr. Perfect _can _come around quickly.

After ten or so minutes both Fang and Iggy returned from outside and I hugged Iggy. He hugged me back and I whispered, "I am so happy for you Ig." Iggy seemed to calm down enough not to hit anyone or anything, so I released him.

"Thanks, Fang." I said to him silently. He then looked at me, amusement in his eyes.

"You're welcome." Fang said, and turned around to face Jeb. I did the same.

Apparently, Byron was awake, "IT speaks!" he shouted, looking at Fang. Okay, if one thing can make me laugh, that would be Byron's ridiculous sentence and Fang's face after he said that. I erupted out in laughter, and so did the rest of the flock.

"If only you could hear his thoughts right now!" Angel said cheerfully, laughing at Fang's priceless expression. Sadly, Jeb was all right and he had retrieved a zippered case. He opened it and inside were several needles. I cringed at the contents of the package, and to my relief, Iggy stopped him.

"Jeb, it is Byron's decision, not yours!" I turned to face Byron, who was still a little hazy.

"My brother is a pyro. That is SO cool." Iggy broke into a smile that would have made the Cheshire Cat jealous. Byron looked at Iggy and clicked his tongue, so Iggy knew to face him.

"Look. If my brother has wings and has to live with it, then so do I." Byron said, and Iggy looked happier than a mouse in a cheese store. He turned and hugged Byron and then went to untie him. Iggy stepped back and nodded at Jeb.

"Now, Byron this is going to hurt. A lot." Jeb warned.

Byron smirked, "I don't care. I will share in my brother's pain."

Jeb seemed a little unsure, "Ok, I just don't know how long it will take." Jeb prepped the first needle and injected it into Byron. Let's just say things went downhill from there.

Give props to my co-author EvFan5282! Both of us worked hard on this chapter.

REVIEW!


	6. Chapter 6

Hey Everybody:

I am really sorry for the long delay in the update of this story. I was able to find a new Beta, FEIGN. So hopefully the next chapter should be coming much, much quicker than this whole mess. I also would like to thank MutantPaperClipWarrior for replying to my beta request.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot and my OC. James Patterson owns everything else.

*Jeb seemed a little unsure, "Ok, I just don't know how long it will take." Jeb prepped the first needle and injected it into Byron. Let's just say things went downhill from there.*

*Max POV*

Byron looked pretty apprehensive at Jeb then he looked over at me. For some reason I thought that, he might not have fully grasped the situation at hand. I grabbed Jeb's hand and stopped him from injecting the next substance into Byron. "Wait, Jeb. I think you should explain everything that's going to happen here." I put a steely edge on my voice and with it alone, convinced Jeb to do what I said. I know, I'm just good like that.

"Alright," Jeb began. But then I noticed that Byron was still tied to the chair. 'Whoops', I thought. I quickly untied him and motioned for Jeb to continue. "Byron, when I finish injecting these substances into your bloodstream; they will change your very DNA. Not only will you get wings, your lungs will expand and gain air sacs, your bones will hollow out and your senses will heighten incredibly. Do you understand?"

Byron nodded and he still did not seem any more relaxed. Oh, that's right. The one secret we had tried to guard from him by being rather mean to him: he was being guilt tripped into by having his newfound brother be a part of it. He was fully entitled to be nervous. I started arguing inside head on how to make up for my behavior. I know...I know, me, Maximum Ride attempting to be nice. But hey, he was becoming part of the Flock. Iggy beat to me it. "Byron, look at me."

Byron rolled his eyes, obviously noticing the irony of Iggy's statement. Iggy continued anyway, "You have every right to be scared. But think of it this way - you will be able to hang with us and with me, your brother. Plus, Max can't yell at you anymore and she'll be able to go make googly eyes at Fang again."

Oh, he was so going to get it later. Byron looked semi-interested. "You and Fang? Huh."

Jeb looked at me. "Can I continue?"

I nodded towards Byron. "It's his decision."

Jeb looked back at Byron and Byron nodded. Jeb reached back into the little black case and withdrew a second needle. Byron looked away and Jeb injected the contents into him. Byron started getting a distant look in his eyes and finally passed out.

"What's happening to Byron?" Iggy almost yelled.

"Iggy, he's fine; he just passed out." Iggy seemed satisfied. "Alright, could we move him to the couch?"

I nodded. Jeb held up his hand as a sign for us to hold up. He injected Byron once more and stepped out of the way so that we could proceed.

Nothing else interesting was probably going to happen tonight, so I started to usher the kids to bed. However, Iggy would not move from the living room. I started to protest but then Fang decided to intervene on Iggy's behalf.

"Max, let him stay here. He still wouldn't move from his brother's side even if you told him to."

"Alright, Iggy. You can stay here for the night. I'll get you some blankets and a pillow," I gave in.

Iggy smiled in my general direction. I got the blankets and the pillow from the hallway and placed them in Iggy's hands. He setup his bed on the second couch. "Good night, Igs." I said softly as not to disturb Byron, who started to drool. I have no idea why, but I found that immensely funny. I held out my fist and the three of us stacked fists. Fang and I headed upstairs, leaving Iggy and Byron in the living room.

We reached my room and I shut the door softly behind us. With unspoken consent, the two of us headed out of the window and we flew up to the roof. No one knew about Fang and I's rooftop conversations. Well, except Angel. Fang and I sat near the edge of the roof with our wings out. With the cool Arizona air, it felt amazing. Unsure of where to begin, I just started talking.

"So, what do you think of the whole situation with Jeb and Byron?"

Fang sat there for a moment and thought through his answer. "Well, I am happy for Iggy. Especially after his breakdown when we tried to find his parents in Virginia. I like the fact that we will have another older person that will be able to help us protect the flock."

Wow, I was impressed that Fang actually spoke in complete sentences but I could not help but agree with his infallible logic.

"Max, do you want to go to dinner with me, this Friday?"

Ok, usually I am the master of comebacks, but that question left me speechless. "Y-y-y-yeah sure." I finally managed to stutter out. I felt my cheeks heat up in embarrassment.

Fang seemed to glow a little bit. He stood up and gently kissed me. "Night, Max." I eagerly kissed him back, but before I could deepen the kiss, he had glided to the ground with his long, black sexy wings. WAIT, WHAT? I forgot I said that. Bad Max. I headed inside and attempted to get some sleep, but my heart was racing.

*Iggy POV*

I heard Max and Fang place Byron on the couch. After a few minutes, Max started to herd the rest of the kids to bed. I didn't want to move from my brother's side. I heard Max begin to walk towards me, but Fang intercepted, "Max, let him stay here. He still wouldn't move from his brother's side even if you told him to."

Max seemed to contemplate her answer, "Alright, Iggy. You can stay here for the night. I'll get you some blankets and a pillow."

I felt grateful towards Max and I owed Fang big time for contradicting Max like that. I heard Max's footsteps leave and return a few moments later, slightly louder. I felt a pile of blanket and a pillow being pushed into my hands. I heard Max and Fang stack fists, so I copied them and heard their muttered good-byes. Max flicked the light switch and I heard her head upstairs. I setup my bed on the Martinez's other couch. I lay down and drifted off to sleep, my brother's deep, even breathing being very relaxing.

*Four Days Later*

*Iggy POV*

It had been four days since Jeb had come by and changed my life forever. I haven't heard Byron stir or even twitch. I was starting to get very worried. Therefore, I went and started to cook breakfast, in an effort to awaken Max and Fang in such a way that I would not get hurt. After fifteen minutes of cooking pancakes and bacon, Max and Fang drifted into the kitchen.

"Good morning Iggy. How did you sleep last night?" Fang asked. I heard Max's footsteps head into the living room.

"Good, Fang, thanks," I replied happily. I was fairly happy but really worried about Byron.

Fang must have understood because he muttered, "He'll be fine, I'm just not sure how long the splice will take."

I muttered my thanks and heard Max return while attempting to smother giggles. She seemed to stop and I heard a rag being thrown towards me, so I held up my hands in anticipation of where the rag would be, so I would catch it.

"Igs, go clean your brother's drool off my mom's couch," came Max's voice.

I sighed and headed into the living room. I wiped off my brother's mouth and wiped down the couch. I turned to leave, when my hand brushed his forehead. His temperature was incredibly high. He was burning up.

I panicked. "MAX, FANG!" I heard them sprint into the room.

"What, Iggy?" Max asked.

"It's Byron. He's burning up," I told her.

I heard her take a few steps towards Byron. She gasped a moment later. Through her tone of voice, I knew she slipped into leader mode. "Iggy, go fill the bath with water, ice, and salt."

With that, I rushed upstairs and hurriedly threw the ice bath together as I heard Max and Fang carry Byron upstairs. They set him on the bathroom floor.

"Fang, go wake Mom and have her call Jeb," Max spoke quickly. He left in a hurry, and I heard him enter Dr. M's room and begin waking her.

"Iggy, help me get Byron in the bath," Max instructed.

I nodded and quickly checked his pockets. It turned out he had a cell phone, wallet and folding knife. I helped Max lower Byron into the bath. I felt Byron's muscles contract as he entered the water. It was then I noticed that Byron was light, like he weighed-as-much-as-me light. I heard a breath being sucked in through clenched teeth, and then I heard the unmistakable sound of chattering teeth. Then nothing.

"Max, what happened?" I asked her urgently.

"Nothing, it was just a response of the temperature difference."

I hoped that Byron would have woken by now. I heard Dr. M's voice as she talked to Jeb over the phone. I heard the click of the receiver and heard her footsteps enter the bathroom.

"Max, how is he?" she asked.

"I'm not sure. He had a really high fever, so we put him here to cool him down."

Dr. M seemed satisfied with her answer. "Good, Jeb should be here shortly."

After fifteen minutes, I heard a truck pull up in the driveway. Shortly thereafter a knock at the door. Max rushed to answer it and I briefly wondered how the rest of the Flock were still asleep after all the noise we made. I guess they really enjoyed having a place to stay every night. I heard Jeb, Max, Fang, and Dr. M come upstairs and enter the bathroom.

Jeb must have performed some tests because he spoke after a little bit. "His body is accepting the splice well, by the sounds of his lungs. I would guess that the last thing is his wings." I heard someone, probably Jeb, unzip a case and pull something out.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It's the final serum, which will allow Byron's wings to grow out," he answered.

I nodded and stepped back. I heard Jeb reach forward and push down on the plunger. He stood back up and pulled two things out of the case, syringes most likely.

"Valencia, if the pain gets too bad, use these. This one induces a chemical coma and the other way will wake him from it," Jeb spoke up. Without another word, Jeb left and I thought Max was fairly glad that Jeb left without giving her crap about 'saving the world' and the 'big picture'. We left Dr. M with Byron and headed downstairs to finish breakfast. After a couple of minutes, Max headed back upstairs to wake the kids for breakfast.

After about fifteen minutes and the Flock was fed, Dr. M and Ella wandered into the kitchen and ate breakfast.

"Iggy, we need to get Byron out of the bath, before he drowns himself," Max said rather bluntly. I knew that she meant well and she still was angry that we had to call Jeb for help, so I let it slide.

We decided to watch a movie after Max and I pulled Byron from the tub and dried him off. We placed him in my bed and threw the covers on him to keep him warm. I know what you're thinking, how does the blind person watch a movie? Angel and her nifty mind powers. She projects an image of the screen into my head and I can watch the movie with everyone else. Ella decided that we needed to have some semblance of a normal childhood and so she declared that we would watch The Little Mermaid. I have to admit Sebastian, the lobster, was pretty funny.

*Max POV*

About three-quarters into the movie, a bloodcurdling scream reached us from upstairs. Everybody rushed upstairs and into my room to find Byron, awake and on the floor with his shirt off. Fang and I shared a look; _His wings must be trying to grow out._ We nodded at each other and ushered everybody out of the room except Dr. M, me, Fang and Iggy.

Byron noticed us and screamed, "Do SOMETHING!"

Mom rushed about and used the auto-injector that Jeb gave us and Byron fell limp. Even though he was out cold, the pain was still etched across his face. I felt bad for Byron because he had to endure the pain of having his wings grow after he was born. For us, our wings came with us when we were born, so there was never any pain.

Iggy seemed really scared so I placed his hand into Byron's and realized the mistake. I forgot that when people are in pain, their muscles contract around something to help them through the pain, similar to having a pregnant woman crush her husband's hand. That is pretty much what Byron did to Iggy, after that I watched Iggy attempt to regain his hand from Byron. After five minutes and a little help from Fang and I, Iggy finally managed to get his hand back and he had to pop two of his fingers back into place. Whoops. My bad. Iggy knew that I was only trying to help and he rubbed my back in between the wings, to show that he was not mad at me. That was Fang's spot. Anyway, we moved Byron back into the bed. After a couple of minutes, Fang and I left the room.

*Six Hours Later*

Iggy had not left his room and he did not shout, so I assumed everything was alright. Of course, according to Murphy's Law, as soon as you think or mention something, that something develops an instantaneous problem.

"MAX, FANG. GET UP HERE!"

I sighed. These past two days have been really exhausting. We raced upstairs to see the one thing that I never wanted to. Iggy had placed Byron on the floor, on his back. Blood was streaming down his backside and I saw that navy grey feathers were starting to break through the skin. I yelled for mom, grabbed the nearest towels, and started to wipe up the blood. Mom appeared almost at once and started giving directions on what to.

"Fang, Iggy, you need to support his wings as they come and Max, keep soaking up the blood." She ran out and returned with her medical kit. She started Byron on an IV fluid drip. "It's to help him cope with the blood loss," she explained.

After five minutes, a lot of blood and a lot of painful groans and moans from Byron; his wings were completely grown and covered in blood. His body healing system kicked into overdrive and the bleeding slowed and then completely stopped. Mom left and we heard the bath being filled.

She returned and said, "Max, Iggy, can you place Byron into the bath? I want to clean him up and wake him."

Iggy and I nodded and carried him to the bath for the second time that day. Byron winced as we placed him into the bath and I saw a container of salt next to the bath. We faintly heard Mom asking Ella to start cleaning the blood out of the carpet. Mom walked back into the bathroom and used the second auto injector.

She noticed I was looking at the salt. "It's to help keep the wounds from becoming infected," she explained again.

After a couple of minutes, Byron began to stir. He moaned loudly and blinked his eyes open. He jumped a little when he saw that the water he was sitting in was tinged red. He turned his head to face us. "What happened?" hee asked, his voice hoarse, probably from all of the yelling.

Iggy spoke up, "You grew your wings."

"Oh" was all Byron was capable of saying at the time.

I filled Byron in a little more, "They are a navy grey color, and we're going to have to help you clean them. But you're going to have to learn to how to clean them on your own."

He nodded. Honestly, I don't blame him for his lack of response, he's been through a lot in his life. A lot of which he probably still hasn't fully accepted.

"Iggy, can you clean your brother's wings and talk him through the process?" I asked.

Iggy nodded and seemed pretty happy that Byron was okay.

Fang noticed as well. "Igs, your happy glow - it's blinding."

Iggy looked a little peeved at the word choice but retorted, "Good, then you'll what it is like to be blind for once," he smirked.

We left the room and let Iggy and Byron bond.

*Byron POV*

I felt a needle prick and started to wake from my nap. The first thing I noticed was that I was sitting a bath tub, in my shorts and the water was tinged a good red. The other thing was that my back was really sore for some reason.

"What happened?" I asked, my voice hoarse. Why was my voice so hoarse?

Iggy spoke up, "You grew your wings."

"Oh," I managed.

Max decided to fill me in a little more. "They are a navy grey color, and we're going to have to help you clean them. But you're going to have to learn to how to clean them on your own."

I nodded. It wasn't like the Flock was going to clean my wings for me all the time.

"Iggy, can you clean your brother's wings and talk him through the process?" Max asked and Iggy nodded. He seemed pretty happy that I was okay.

Fang seemed to notice, too. "Igs, your happy glow - it's blinding."

Iggy seemed a little irritated, but retorted, "Good, then you'll see what it's like to be blind for once."

After Max and Fang left the room, Iggy walked over and grabbed the soap and started running his fingers through what I assumed were my feathers.

"Generally, when you're cleaning your feathers, you have to run your fingers side to side to get underneath them and then you want to align them facing down. Its more comfortable that way."

I nodded, then realizing that my brother could not see my head gesture, I said, "Okay. Thanks."

He nodded back.

"It feels weird as you're running your fingers through my feathers," I noted.

"Yeah, it does a little bit," he replied.

"So, what is it like to fly?" I wondered aloud.

At that question, Iggy seemed to light up. "It's honestly the best thing in the world. It compares to nothing else. Though you're going to have to learn how."

I figured as much. "Is it hard?"

He laughed. "No, you throw yourself at the ground and miss."

At that we both started laughing. After about fifteen minutes, he declared me clean and exited the tub, soaking wet and feeling like someone attached sixty pound weights to my back.

Iggy seemed to notice my discomfort, "You feel really heavy because your wings are soaked. It's why Max never lets us fly through rainstorms."

He grabbed a bunch of big towels and threw one to me. I threw my wet shorts into the tub and toweled off. He started drying my wings, after he was done I felt a lot better. I started thinking again and realized that I could not get through the door because my wings were partially unfurled.

"Uh Igs, how do I fold my wings?"

He laughed quietly and gently pushed against them. My body seemed to respond by itself by unfurling them farther and hitting Iggy. "Crap, Igs, sorry!"

He replied, "Its no biggie, but did you feel the muscles that pushed back?" I said I did. "Okay. Try to work those and your wings should fold neatly against your spine."

It took fifteen minutes and two more times of hitting Iggy, but I got my wings to fold against my back. It was a nice feeling having the softness and the warmth of feathers against my back.

I yawned loudly and Iggy directed me towards the bed. As I left the bathroom and entered the bedroom, what I assumed was Iggy's room, I found Ella and Gazzy scrubbing blood out of the carpet. Whoops. I guess I would have to apologize to Dr. M for destroying her carpet. They seemed really surprised to see me awake and moving. I also heard them talking about my wings. I found the bed and fell face first against it. As I rolled onto my back as I was used to doing, I found the position incredibly uncomfortable and rolled back onto my stomach. I faintly heard Iggy smother a snicker and then I passed out for like the third or fourth time in two days.

Hey:

Again I am really sorry, it took me so long to update. Please review!

-theonlymedic


	7. Chapter 7

Hey All:

I would like to really thank FEIGN for helping me post these next two chapters so quickly! I hope you enjoy the upcoming chapters.

-theonlymedic

*I found the bed and fell face first against it. As I rolled onto my back as I was used to doing, I found the position incredibly uncomfortable and rolled back onto my stomach. I faintly heard Iggy smother a snicker and then I passed out for the third or fourth time in two days.*

**Six Hours Later**

I reluctantly opened my eyes and looked around the room for the clock. 3:00 p.m. Saturday. Huh... Getting your genes spliced really makes you tired. As I sat up, a really sharp pain passed through my back. Ow, _Ow_. Still sore. Maybe Dr. M had something for the pain. I managed to roll out of bed and found my pair of pajama pants. I put those on along with my 'Bundespolizei' (Federal Police) T-shirt. I dragged myself over to the bathroom and brushed my teeth; taming my hair was a lost cause.

I halfway stumbled down the stairs and followed my nose to the kitchen. I found Dr. M, along with Iggy and Ella, sitting around the kitchen table.

"Morning," they said brightly. My stomach rumbled in response.

Iggy and Ella laughed quietly, but Iggy understood. "Breakfast, followed immediately by lunch?"

I merely nodded. Ella got up and went to help him prepare food.

I sat down by Dr. M. "Hey, do you have anything for the pain?"

She nodded quickly and asked, "On a scale from one to ten, how bad is the pain?"

I thought for a second and answered, "Six to seven, with occasional spikes."

She nodded and left. I let my head thud against the table and started going back to sleep. My trip to unconscious land was interrupted by the loud sound of a plate being placed on front of me, along with two or three glasses and some silverware. I managed to lift my head and saw at least three omelets, a small stack of pancakes and bacon. BACON! I chugged the first glass, Iggy had placed in front of me, which turned out to be orange juice. I attacked the bacon first, then started on the omelets. I have one thing to say: Damn, this food is good. "Igs, this **- **" I swallowed " - is really - " I swallowed again " - good!" Iggy smiled in return.

Dr. M returned to the table and placed a small prescription bottle next to the second glass of orange juice. "Those are Vicodin. Only take one or two, as needed and with food," she rattled off.

"Yes, doctor, I will take two and call you in the morning," I said dryly in response.

She narrowed her eyes for a second, then smiled. I downed two Vicodin and continued eating. Ella looked a little disgusted at my eating habits. I thought she would be used to it by now. Oh well. I finished the first plate of food and it was replaced by a plate overflowing with hamburgers and hot dogs. Sweet. As I started eating again, I did not really notice a) the Flock returning from outside and b) the loud eating noises I was accidentally making due my massive hunger.

I was made aware of the Flock's presence by Nudge's remark. "Max, you were right. Men are food garbage disposals. They'll eat anything."

I looked at them and swallowed my food. "Uh...hi. I'm awake."

I went back to stuffing my face. Hey, not eating for twelve hours and having your genes spliced also makes you incredibly hungry. What I can say, I'm now a growing kid...er, bird-kid. Max and the rest of the Flock grabbed some food, sat down and started eating along with me.

Max looked at me with concern. "How is Your Majesty feeling today?"

I looked at her. "Excellent, princess. In fact, I will be annexing this is the name of my stomach," I said, while grabbing one of her hamburgers off her plate.

She glared at me, I simply smiled back and continued eating.

After lunch, I was feeling much better and decided that I would spend the rest of the day meeting the real Flock. I, logically, started with my brother Iggy. After he finished washing the dishes, with Ella's help, I followed him back to his room and sat on his bed.

"What's up, Byron?" he asked.

Okay, I'll admit that was a little unsettling. "How did you know it was me?" I countered.

He looked about an inch and a half below my eyes, "Easy, your footsteps. Yours are similar to Fangs, light and quick."

That seemed sensible enough. "Oh, cool. So what do you like to do besides cook and build bombs?"

He though for just a moment, then he walked over to his desk and pulled out a black iPod and tossed it at me. I caught it easily and flipped it over to find the size of the iPod. It was a 160 GB model. I flipped it back over and hit the hold switch, turning the device on. The iPod asked for a passcode. I thought about it for a moment and tried 7-9-7-6. The device accepted the passcode and displayed all of the artists on the device. That figures, 7-9-7-6 spelled 'PYRO'.

I laughed and Iggy noticed. "What's so funny?"

I steadied my voice and replied, "Your passcode, it spells 'PYRO'."

He looked at me with confusion. "Really, Gazzy must have set that. He just told me the numbers." He chuckled.

"So," I began, "Max and Fang are all googly eyed for each other?"

Iggy nodded. "Angel and Nudge had been trying to get them together for a long time now. It's really funny how they're so blind to each other's affection."

I started scrolling through the artists and found some good ones, Nightwish, Kamelot, Evanescence, Rammstein, Blue Öyster Cult and others. For some reason, my brain remembered that Iggy snickered at me before I passed out on his bed after I grew my wings. "Hey Iggy, why did you laugh at me when I passed out on your bed?"

He looked at me, his piercing blue eyes locking on my mine, "We bird-kids don't sleep on our backs. It was funny that you tried to." Oh. Picking on the new guy, eh?

Speaking of my wings, mine were really uncomfortable. "Hey, my wings are really uncomfortable. Is there anything I can do to make them more comfortable?"

He nodded and quickly left the room. He returned about a minute late with Max at his heels.

"What's up, Byron?" she asked.

"My wings are really uncomfortable."

She nodded and pulled a knife out of her pocket. "Here, I am going to cut slits in your shirt, so that you can let your wings out easier. Plus you might want to stretch your wings. Keeping them tight against your back will cause the muscles to become really sore."

I nodded and stored all of the useful information in the recesses of my brain. Max smiled and left the room.

"Hey, Byron." I looked back at Iggy.

"Yeah, what's up?" I replied.

"Do you want to practice moving your wing muscles and stretch them a bit?"

I thought that I would have to practice using my wings eventually. "Sure, I guess."

We headed towards the backyard and as we passed the kitchen table, I grabbed the bottle of Vicodin that Dr. M gave to me and slid it into my pocket.

We stopped in roughly the middle of the backyard and Iggy turned to face me. "Now, I think it would be easiest for you if you took off your shirt."

I removed my shirt and placed it on the nearest rock I could find. As I walked back towards Iggy, I realized that I had a fairly well-built six-pack. _When did that get there? _I reasoned it occurred during the gene splice and focused on what Iggy was going to teach me.

"Now, do you remember the muscles you used to fold your wings yesterday?" I started trying to move the muscles that I had yesterday. Let me tell you, its really hard moving muscles that you recently acquired by genetic engineering.

"I can't seem to move them," I finally replied.

"It's alright. After all, you weren't born with your wings." Iggy walked over to me and gently pulled out on my wings, so that I could feel which muscles I needed to use to open and close them. I tried to memorize that feeling because chances were that I would be using those muscles a lot more.

"Okay, I think I got the feeling," I said.

Iggy stepped back and slightly opened his own wings while letting out a relaxing sigh. I closed my eyes and concentrated on that feeling that my wing muscles made and sure enough, they opened slowly and I felt a lot better after they were open.

Iggy must have known my wings were open because he continued with the lesson. "Now it's really important that whenever you use your wings you use them in sync with each other. I know this seems like a stupid thing to say, but we as humans tend to use one hand more that the other, but your wings you have to learn how to use together."

So for the next thirty minutes, Iggy just had me practice, opening and closing my wings together and then doing the same thing but with my now modified shirt. After that, he taught me how to flap my wings and angle them for take-off, flights and landing.

After two to three hours of work, Max came out and announced it was time for dinner. Iggy and I both ran into the house, I was thoroughly exhausted from learning how to use muscles I gained less than twenty-four hours ago. Dinner turned out to be Mexican, cooked by Dr. M, and let me tell you it was amazing. After dinner, the flock and I decided to watch a movie. Ella picked another classic movie, The Shawshank Redemption. It was pretty good, had a lot of unexpected plot twists and likable characters. After the movie was over, I headed back to my room that I shared with Iggy. After Iggy found out that I was his brother, he wanted to make up for fourteen years of lost time together, so we became roommates. After I showered, wings and all, I noticed that a loose feather fell to the ground. I picked it up and carried it back to my room.

"Hey, Byron. Ready for bed?" Iggy asked me.

"Yeah, just a minute more. Hey, I want to say thanks for everything."

Iggy nodded, so I picked my feather up off my desk and placed it in his hand. He smiled widely. "Thanks, Byron." He ran the feather through his fingers. "Navy grey huh?"

I replied a little arrogantly, "Yeah, that they are. About fifteen feet across, too."

He placed the feather on his desk and rolled back over. "G'night, Byron." He held out his hand so we could stack fists.

"Goodnight, Igs." And just that I fell onto my bed, stomach first with my wings slightly outspread to allow them to dry easier.

Hey!

Click the little green button. It does not bite! It does however, release a cloud of Spanish speaking spiders. Review please!


	8. Chapter 8

Unforeseen Past – Chapter Eight

I awoke from my slumber and found a small puddle of drool on my pillow. "Ugh…"

I sat up and wiped the drool off my face then rubbed my eyes vigorously in an attempt to wake myself up. I opened them and noticed that the room was still dark; Iggy was still passed out on the bed next to me. I looked around the room for a clock and saw that it was 9:45 a.m.

Feeling the munchies rear its ugly head, I headed downstairs in search of food. I found a box of Cheez-Its in the pantry and starting eating.

I soon finished off the box and got bored. I had no idea of what was going to happen today until the others woke up. I heard someone shuffle down the stairs and head into the kitchen. I really hoped that it was Iggy because I was still hungry. To my relief, Iggy was indeed standing in front of the stove, cooking bacon.

I attempted to sneak up on him, but he must have heard me coming. "Byron, you cannot sneak like Fang does. Nice try, though."

I sighed loudly, just to annoy him. "So why I am constantly hungry?"

He turned around and looked about two inches below my eyes; it is really creepy how he is able to almost look directly at you without having ever seen you. "Well," he began, "now that you have two extra limbs, they tend to burn more energy than you're used to."

The bacon started to sizzle in the pan and they looked _really_ good. I reached into the pan to grab a piece when the tip of my finger touched the side of the pan. "_Ow,_ ouch!" I yelled. I managed to hold on to the bacon (which tasted delicious, by the way).

"Did you…?" Iggy started, and then he burst out laughing.

I heard Max and Fang thunder down the stairs, probably trying to figure out why there was so much commotion so early in the morning. They looked extremely confused at the scene before them: Iggy was cooking breakfast while failing at containing his laughter and I was attempting to treat my burned finger. I felt like Max figured it out because she muttered "Idiot" in my general direction.

"Bite me" was my brilliant response.

The smells of Iggy's cooking seemed to have drifted up the stairs, because the rest of the kids showed up. When Iggy had finally cooked the rest of breakfast,we all sat down and started to devour everything on the table.

_I wonder what we are doing today, _I thought to myself.

The youngest, with curly blond hair, Angel, I think her name was, looked up and asked Max, "What are we doing today?"

Her words echoed my thoughts exactly. It was kind of creepy.

Max looked to be in thought for a moment and answered for the rest of the group. _Flock_. The word seemed to appear into my head. I shrugged it off as me being semi-coherent. "I think it's time for _Idiot_ to learn how to fly."

I shot her a glare and she stuck her tongue out at me. _Mature, _I thought.

"Max, Byron said that was really mature," Angel announced.

Max looked none too surprised, but I was confused as hell. I hadn't spoken aloud!

Angel sensed my confusion and told me, "I can read minds, Byron." Well that made sense…wait, _what_? Angel continued to stare at me. "I thought you knew that each of us had powers?"

I vaguely felt my head shake. "Wait, you put the word, Flock, into my head?"

Angel nodded, and then the rest of what she said had caught up with me. "Wait, _powers_?" I stuttered.

The young blonde boy nodded, I think his name was Gazzy. "Yeah. Max has warp drive, Fang can turn invisible, Nudge can hack computers and has control over magnetic stuff, Iggy can feel colors and has enhanced senses, I can mimic anything and my name is not The Gasman for nothing and my sister can read and control minds."

I nodded, trying to store all this information into my head. I felt really out of the loop, knowing that the Flock (as they were called) had kept a lot of information to themselves.

Angel looked at me knowingly. "Byron, you're part of the Flock now, too."

Somehow getting my thoughts read and then being included in the group did not put my mind at ease. I then remembered that Max was going to tell everyone what we were going to do today. "Max, you were saying something about what we're going to do?" I asked her.

"Right." She seemed to get back on track after Gazzy's little spiel. "Well, I thought that we could all practice sparring, while I taught Byron how to fly." Everyone's eyes seem to light up at the idea; I felt the butterflies begin to take off in my stomach.

Once everyone had finished eating, we split up. Everyone except Max and I headed outside to practice sparring.

Max looked at me with apprehension, shook her head slightly and muttered, "Come on, this has to happen sometime."

We headed upstairs and she opened the window to the roof. She then motioned for me to climb out onto the roof. We both climbed out and stood on top of it and she looked at me expectantly, like I suddenly going to grow wings and fly.

Oh, wait.

She started to look impatient. "Well go on," she prodded.

I gave her a slightly confused look.

"Okay, just fall like two or three feet and then open your wings and flap."

I nodded. "Right…"

Apparently, she was getting too impatient because she pushed me off the roof.

My human instincts took over and I fell twenty feet to the solid concrete below. Let me tell you, I hated Isaac Newton at that moment. I felt like pudding in great pain.

Max must have been in shock because I heard nothing from the roof. I shakily got to my feet and headed inside to lie down. Max must have finally come to her senses because I heard her shout, "Byron, wait!"

I opened the door and started inside when Max flew down and tried to catch up to me. I did not hear her say the rest of her apology because I slammed the door in her face and headed upstairs. I reached my room and slammed that door too. I grabbed the bottle of Vicodin that Dr. M had given to me, I dry-swallowed three of them and fell face first into my bed.

*Max POV*

I was a little impatient with Byron and I wanted him to fly already.

I sighed as he gave me a confused look. "Okay, just fall like two or three feet and then open your wings and flap."

He nodded. I figured that his human instincts were taking over and causing him to freeze up, so I gave him a gentle push. I watched in horror as his human side completely took over and he fell twenty feet onto the solid concrete below.

He lay on the ground for a few minutes before getting up and starting to walk inside the house. I cleared my mind enough to process what needed to be done. "Byron, wait!" I yelled at him and flew off the roof in an attempt to help him. "Byron, look I'm really-" I couldn't finish the rest of my apology because he slammed the front door in my face.

Usually if someone did that they would find the door being kicked in and themselves in a lot of trouble. But considering I pushed him off the roof of the house, I guessed I could let this one slide. By the time I opened the front door, I could hear his bedroom door slam. I guess he was upset and in more pain then he let on.

The rest of the Flock wandered into the house to see what all the commotion was about, as well as my mom and Ella.

"Sweetie is everything alright?" my mom asked me.

"No, not exactly…" My voice trailed off.

I completely forgot that Angel could read my mind but soon remembered that when she gasped, "You pushed Byron off the roof?"

After everyone had every time to process what she had said, my mom and Iggy rounded on me. "You _pushed_ my brother off the roof?" Iggy practically yelled in my face. He turned and stomped upstairs to go help Byron. My mom looked none too pleased with me, either.

"Mom, I'm sorry. That's how Nudge, Gazzy and Angel learned how to fly," I said helplessly.

Fang finally decided to speak. "Yes, but our old house was perched on a cliff, so if they didn't fly, we could catch them."

Whoops, oh boy...

"Max, you're going upstairs and apologizing to Byron," my mom scolded me.

We headed upstairs to Byron and Iggy's room and kicked the rest of the Flock except Fang and Iggy downstairs. When we got there, we found Byron passed out on his bed. We rolled him onto his back and tried to wake him up.

"Byron, _wake up_!"

He grunted lazily opened his eyes, "M-mom?"

"Yes, honey?" she answered.

"Why is everyone yelling?" His words were really slow and drawn out. Mom noticed the open bottle of Vicodin on his nightstand.

Byron looked really happy. "Max, y-you know th-that Fang _lovvves_ you _this much!_" he drawled. He looked to be in a state of pure bliss.

I sighed and shook my head. I would never live that down. Wait...Iggy told Bryon!

"Hey, my hands are huge. They can touch anything but themselves. Oh, wait. Never mind," he said dreamily.

"Max, Fang, Iggy, come on. Nothing is going to happen to him until the Vicodin wears off," my mom said disapprovingly.

We all headed downstairs whereupon I grabbed the nearest chocolate chip cookie and started munching on it.

I was still confused and mom must have noticed my confusion because she said, "Honey, he took a little much Vicodin. He's high."

Oh. At least he is not in any pain. Mom again noticed my expression and seemed to read my thoughts. "He'll be in pain, just not until the Vicodin wears off. I'll go and make sure he's alright, that he has no internal damage or broken bones."

And with that, she left to head back upstairs. I felt really bad for hurting Byron and I was sure once he was okay, Iggy was going to chew me out.

But that could wait. Iggy was currently distracted and staring off into space. My hand crept over the tabletop to grab another cookie, but Iggy's sightless eyes suddenly swung around to look at me. "Max..."

I stared at him, wary. "Yeah?"

"If you push Byron off the roof again, I might consider bringing explosives into the house."

Crap. I'd just recently convinced him to _not_ do that. "How else am I supposed to teach him?"

"By not pushing him off the roof." His tone was scathing. "I just found out I have a brother! Can you please not murder him?"

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "I'll try my best."

Beside me, Fang nudged me. I glanced up at him, into his dark eyes. They were expressionless as always. "How about an up-and-away?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.

"Well, those are the kinds of escapes we have to make," he said quietly. "That might be the first thing you want to teach Bryon."

It had to be the longest speech he'd made since we'd arrived. I nodded slowly. This could work. "And they're difficult, too - "

"Don't teach him anything too hard," Iggy interrupted.

I waved him off. "Calm down, Iggs. I'm just saying if we teach him difficult stuff first, pushing him off the roof won't seem like such a big deal."

"I thought I said to not push him off the roof!"

I sighed. "I'm just _saying_. We'll concentrate on up-and-away."

"That is, once he wakes up," murmured Fang.

"No, we can't teach Byron how to do an up-and-away until he's been flying and has the endurance to perform the maneuver," Iggy said in a 'duh' sort of way. I glared at him. I hate it when people point out the obvious, especially to me.

"Fine," I ground out.

Iggy smirked and replied, "I'm going to teach Byron how to fly this time."

Silly Byron. It had hardly been a few days into his strange new life and he was already high. I bet he never imagined he would be high in _this_ certain way, though. I stifled a snort of amusement and I saw Iggy's eyes flick over in my general direction.

"Are you laughing?" he asked in an accusing tone.

"No," I said honestly. Not yet, anyway.

"It's not funny," he muttered, before turning around and climbing the stairs after my mom.

I watched his retreating back, then looked outside to where the younger kids were walking around. Nudge and Angel were sitting together and Gazzy was wandering aimlessly around the yard. I thought it might be a good idea to let them back in, since our appointment with Byron was over, but the cookies were still out and I felt possessive of them.

Angel looked my way, and I heard her voice drift through my mind. _So Byron is alright?_

I nodded. _Yeah. Just high in the sky._

She giggled. _He'll wake soon_, came her voice, confident.

I raised my eyebrows. Angel got kind of scary sometimes when she claimed to know it all. She'd even tried to become the Flock leader. Scary seven-year-old, that was for sure.

And life was about to get scarier.

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	9. Chapter 9

Hey: I just realized that I accidentally wrote about the flock telling of their powers to Byron twice. My bad folks. Like always, I still do not own anything except Byron and the plot.

Unforeseen Past – Chapter Nine

*Byron POV* One and a half days later

I opened my eyes only to find my arm in a sling and that my entire body hurt. I tried to remember why I was in such pain, but it was all a big blank spot in my memory. I vaguely heard Angel tell the rest of the Flock that I was awake. I thought the entire Flock would want to see me but I only heard two people coming up the stairs. I rolled onto my back and felt no pain.

_What the hell happened to me? _I thought, panicking slightly.

I heard the door open and Max and Iggy walked into the room. Iggy looked scared and angry, while Max actually looked regretful. "Byron?" Iggy said gently.

"Hey, Igs," I managed to reply weakly. At those words, Iggy immediately brightened up and Max seemed to be less nervous.

Max stepped forward. "Byron, I'm really sorry for what happened. Now I'll let you get some rest."

She turned to leave the room, but I voiced my confusion. "Sorry for what?"

Max tried quite hard to get to the door, but Iggy managed to stop her and yell, "You gave him brain damage! You _will_ tell him what happened."

She turned around and sighed. I wasn't happy about Iggy yelling, especially since I was still in pain and semi-conscious. "Igs, keep it down!" I managed to half-yell.

He looked apologetic. Max grabbed the nearest chair and sat in it backwards. She sighed again and glanced at the door, which Iggy was guarding. She looked back at me and began, "So yesterday, while we were eating breakfast, we decided that we needed to teach you how to fly and the rest of the Flock would practice sparring with Fang. We went to the roof and you took your sweet time, so I explained the process. I got a little impatient, so I gave you some encouragement and pushed. Your human instincts took over and you failed to fly. You fell to the driveway pretty hard and managed to walk inside, took too many Vicodin, got high and fell asleep."

Oh, well, that would make sense. "So what happens now?" I asked her.

She thought about that for a second. "You're going to rest up and once you feel up to it, we'll try to teach you how to fly again. But this time, Iggy is going to teach you."

I nodded and Max seemed relieved that I wasn't mad at her. "Thanks for your honesty, and I forgive you. Something tells me that falling off of a roof will be one of many injuries in the months to come." I hesitated, trying to figure out how to form my next question in a good manner, but couldn't, so I just asked it, "So does this mean that you don't hate me anymore and we're friends?"

She smiled and nodded, "I'm sorry that I treated you badly. I felt you were threat to my Flock at the time."

I laughed weakly. "That's funny because before you came here, Ella told me that we would get along quite well."

Max laughed pretty hard along with me and Iggy. She stood up and did something I told she was not capable of, she hugged me and spoke into my ear, "Tell anyone and I make sure you end up here again."

I nodded and smiled. "There's the tough-as-nails Max I know and love."

She headed towards the door and Iggy let her leave. I decided that I had been in bed for long enough and started to get out. Iggy must have heard me because he made his way over to the bed and pushed me back down.

"You aren't going anywhere. You fell twenty feet onto solid concrete," he said in a disapproving tone.

I smiled. "So when am I going to down eat food, then? Really hungry here."

"Alright," he sighed, and left the room, probably to make food. I was really glad that he was going to bring the food to me seeing as I probably wouldn't make it down the stairs in one piece. About five minutes later, I heard a knock on the door. I attempted to yell "Come in!" but it sounded I had gone through puberty again because my voice cracked.

Gazzy walked through the door and looked around.

"Who or what are you looking for, Gazzy?"

He looked at me. "I just finished a really cool bomb and I want to try it out with Iggy."

I was a little unsure that an eight-year-old should be handling explosive materials. "You're eight and handling explosives?" I asked.

He nodded. "Its fine, they've helped us in fights before."

I nodded skeptically. "Iggy is downstairs, making food. If you stay here, maybe you can snag some." He brightened and jumped onto the bed. "Owww," I moaned. Gazzy smiled sheepishly. Thankfully, someone had put a small TV in the room so we spent the next ten to fifteen minutes watching it and talking about our lives and how boring mine has been compared to his.

Iggy walked into the room carrying a massive tray, piled high with food. He sat down on the bed with the food, both Gazzy and I grabbed some and started to stuff our faces. We spent the rest of the day eating and talking about explosives, our lives and other random stuff. During the course of the questioning, Gazzy asked me, "So which one of you is the older brother?"

Iggy and I looked at each other. We had never really thought about it. I guess I would ask Jeb the next time I saw him. Over the next few days, Gazzy, Iggy and I would gather in my room with plenty of food, waiting for me to heal.

It took about four days for me to heal; I was really surprised on how fast it took. Must be another fun thing about having 2% bird DNA. After finally healing and feeling well enough to walk downstairs, I told Max that I was ready to give flying another shot. She told me that Iggy was going to teach me how to fly. To be honest, Iggy's plan was a lot better than Max's plan. We (I mean Max, Fang, Iggy and I) were to head to one of the tallest buildings in the Phoenix area. We would gain access to the roof and wait for nightfall. This way, if I did not manage to fly, then Max or Fang would be able to catch me and no one would be able to see us. Nudge, Gazzy and Angel were having a movie marathon at Dr. M's house.

We made it to the roof and waited about six hours for night to fall. While we were waiting, Iggy reviewed the basics of flight with me. It seemed like a good idea, to have an idea of what you are supposed to do.

After night fell, the four of us climbed the little ledge that was supposed to keep people from falling off the edge of the building.

Max looked at me. "We will be here to catch you. But if you fly, then we will join you and help you build strength and endurance."

Iggy smiled. "You can do this, just throw yourself at the ground and miss."

We all laughed at that, even Fang's lip twitched. I started to focus on what I had to do and tried to suppress my human instincts. I looked straight ahead and flapped my wings once. I pulled them tight against my back. I spread my feet and prepared to jump. Then I performed a swimmer's dive off the roof of the building and free-fell for about ten feet before swiftly unfurling my wings and flapping them experimentally to see how hard I would have to flap in order to keep aloft. I remembered what Iggy had taught me two weeks ago about how to turn. I performed a very shaky turn and turned back towards the building.

I saw Iggy cheering wildly for me, Max was smiling and I even managed to have Fang nod at me. The three of them jumped off the building and joined me in flight.

Max flew next to me and yelled, "We're going to fly until you get tired, then we'll head back to my mom's house."

I nodded and we flew around the Phoenix area for about an hour before I couldn't really go any farther. I signaled to Max that I was exhausted and we headed back to Dr. M's house. I circled above her yard and waited for Max, Fang and Iggy to land. They cleared the yard and kept their wings out in order to let them cool off. I started my descent to the ground and flared my wings so that I could come to a running stop. I hit the ground fairly hard and attempted to keep myself upright by running, but I tripped and face-planted in the yard. I faintly heard Max giggle and Iggy followed the sounds of my moaning to help me up.

After we entered the house, we found everyone asleep except Dr. M. She wanted to know how my first flight turned out. I told her that it was exhilarating but incredibly tiring. We trudged upstairs and Max told me that tomorrow we would work on running take-offs. We headed to bed after showering and brushing our teeth.

I think it was around three a.m. when I woke up with an extreme case of the munchies. Iggy wasn't kidding when he said that flying really burns calories. I was in the kitchen when I heard talking outside the front door. I dismissed it as nothing. Then the front door quietly opened and a really big guy wearing a red and white horizontally striped shirt entered. It looked like Waldo found me.

He growled, "Hello, subject fourteen."

I literally panicked and found myself in a defensive crouch. Have you ever seen the scene from _The Punisher_, where the Russian visits Frank Castle and they have this massive fight in his apartment? It went sorta like that except I lost the fight and there was no fragmentation grenade. I was really surprised that no one woke up during the fight. The last thing I remember was being stuck with a needle.

*Max POV*

Wow. I must have been really tired because I woke up around ten in the morning. I headed downstairs for breakfast and found my mom staring at her front hallway. It had been completely destroyed. It looked like a big fight happened over night, to be honest.

I was still trying to process this when Iggy thundered down the stairs and blurted out, "TheytookByron."

I stared, trying to understand him when he said in a slightly more comprehensible voice, "Byron's gone."

My mind blanked. I couldn't imagine why they would take Byron. Yes, we all pretty much knew who took Byron. The little badge on the floor proved it.

*Byron POV*

After coming to, I blinked my eyes and tried to figure out where I was. Wait, why was everything white and _why_ was I in a _dog crate_? Two words rang in my head from when me, Gazzy and Iggy were talking back when I was healing. The School.

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	10. Chapter 10

Hey All: I apologize for the delay in updating, my summer engineering courses are coming to a close. This means that my Statics and Calculus III finals are tomorrow and Friday respectively. And then Freedom!

Also, I am a little frustrated at the lack of reviews. I will, however, continue the story because I am enjoying it immensely. This chapter was written by my co-author/beta, FEIGN. Enjoy!

Unforeseen Past – Chapter Ten

*Byron POV*

So let's recap, shall we? I had finished my first successful flying lesson, courtesy of Iggy, and during the night, I got the munchies and ended up getting kidnapped by these men who looked like they should have been models.

The next thing I knew, I was slowly waking due to whatever they injected me with. And get this: I am in a dog crate. This meant one thing: I was at the School. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to ponder my situation any further as two scientists walked into the room and headed toward my cage.

"So, you're saying that this is the lost Subject Fourteen?" one scientist asked the other.

The second scientist nodded joyfully. "It turns out that Jeb finished the hybridization of this one, later in its life. I cannot wait to see how its body compares to the other subjects who were born with 2% avian DNA."

The scientists stopped in front of my cage. "If you come quietly, things will be much smoother for everyone," one of them told me.

I looked at them, glaring as best I could. "Go to hell."

The scientists seemed unfazed by my answer. It seemed Max and the Flock had given them a very hard time already.

One of the scientists spoke something into the radio clipped to his belt. Two of the model-looking men walked into the room and did the last thing I expected. They transformed. Into these half-men half-wolf things that were bulging with muscles. They walked up to the cage as the scientists left saying, "Bring it to laboratory three."

The wolf-men nodded and grinned evilly. They kicked my cage, forcing me towards the back and then they opened it and dragged me out. I attempted to fight back using the skills that my adoptive father gave me but these _things_ were too strong. All my efforts earned me was a knee to the stomach and a good right hook across my face. I accidently bit my tongue, which bled openly into my mouth. I spit the blood into the things face and it decked me again.

After that little fiasco, I was dragged to lab three where I saw a bunch of scientists gathered around a shiny, stainless-steel lab table. It didn't take long for me to put two and two together and end up with the fact that this was not going to go well for me.

The wolf-men slammed me into the cold, hard table and strapped me to it so I couldn't escape. I struggled, but it was all in vain. I only managed to kick one of their wolfish muzzles and he barely twitched.

One of the scientists looked at me eagerly. He had a needle in one hand and a scalpel in the other. I gulped. So they were going to stab me with a needle, then cut me up to examine my insides. Did these people have any morals at all?

*Max POV*

Iggy picked up the badge from the floor and chucked it out the window. None of us tried to stop him. He had a good reason to rage. I waited for him to stop, and then gently tugged his arm.

"Byron," he whispered.

"C'mon, Iggy. We need to figure out a plan," I said.

"A plan?" he echoed.

"We're going to save him, of course!" Gazzy told him.

Iggy's expression cleared. "You're right."

Despite the face his only brother was gone, Iggy made breakfast and we began forming a plan while we ate. I sorted out most of it, but Fang and Iggy added their say on things, too. My mom was standing in the corner, her eyebrows furrowed in concern. I tried not to think about leaving. Because I didn't want to, not quite yet. And Ella. What would I say to my half-sister?

I shook away my thoughts and instead argued with Iggy about something he'd just pointed out. "No, we can't just barge in. Erasers will be everywhere."

"How else can we do it?" he retorted. "Any other way could take longer and Bryon could be skewered by the time we get to him."

"We use stealth," said Fang quietly.

The whole Flock stared at him. I was included, of course. Using stealth was practically unheard of us to do. We didn't usually come up with plans, either, so this was quite a strange experience. We normally came up with everything on the spot, in Flock terms, we were usually 'winging it'.

"How?" Nudge echoed my thoughts.

Fang's lips pulled up in a smile. "It's not too hard, you know."

"Maybe when you can blend into any background," I reminded him. "Not all of us can do that."

"You haven't considered this option much, have you?" said Fang wryly.

I frowned. "Maybe I haven't. If you would be so kind to explain _how_ we can get to Byron without being seen, I'll think about it."

Fang nodded slowly. "I can do that."

"Oh!" gushed Nudge. "Will we wear black clothes and sneak around inside vents?"

"I hope not," said Iggy, squirming. "I don't like tight spaces."

"Will we all be going to save Byron?" asked Angel.

I bit my lip. It would be hard to bring the younger kids; they might drag us down. Of course, Angel could probably hear what I was thinking right now and she would find a way to worm her way into the rescue. "I'm not sure."

I saw that thoughtful expression on Angel's face and I winced. She was surely thinking of a plan for everyone to go.

Fang finally spoke up. "Okay, so here's what we'll do..."

*Byron POV*

It turned out the scientist didn't want to cut me up. He injected the needle into my system, but it didn't seem to have any wild effects on me. Thank god. They were all madly taking notes while I struggled against the straps that held me down.

"Let's put it in isolation cell seven," suggested one of the scientists.

"That's a good idea," one of the women scientists agreed. "We can monitor how its body reacts to it. Should we bring it food?"

I hated how they referred to me as 'it'.

"Yes, regularly for a week. Then we'll see how long it can survive without it."

_Ugh_, I thought. _They're really doing this!_

A pair of wolf-men ripped off the straps. I immediately lashed out with my legs and knocked one of them away. The other snarled in anger and slashed my cheek with bared claws. I cried out in pain and one of the scientists scolded the wolf-man.

"Don't damage it!"

"The thing is fighting! What else can I do?" One of the wolf-men asked.

"Just pick it up," sighed the scientist.

The wolf-man easily threw me over his shoulder and carried me out of the room. I kicked, punched, and even bit the guy, but to no avail. He didn't loosen his hold on me. He yanked open the steel door and unceremoniously threw me into the dark room. The thick steel door slammed shut behind him.

Isolation cell seven.

Home, sweet home.

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	11. Chapter 11

Hey Guys:

I am really sorry that this chapter took so long to write. My junior year in college has started and its getting a little difficult. I already have chapter twelve in the works. Thank you for sticking with the story.

Title: This is My Disclaimer and Other Legal Mumbo-jumbo  
Author: Me.  
Fandom: _Maximum Ride_  
Disclaimer: I own nothing except Byron Hadley and the plot. Void where prohibited.

*Byron POV*

Honestly, I thought the School was more evil than locking me in a room with nothing to do. Were they trying to bore me to death? This was the third day that the white coats have stopped feeding me. I heard the massive steel locks slide open and I tried to prepare myself for the blinding light that was to come.

Two of the wolf-men walked into the room and started to drag me out, probably towards one of the labs.

As it turned out, I was right about the trip to the lab because the wolf men slammed me into the cold steel table and started fastening the Velcro restraints to my arms and wrists. I noticed two white coats standing in the corner of the room discussing something. I was a little bit faster than the wolf-men who were attempting to restrain my feet and managed to kick one of the white coats in the face. He fell back against the cabinets and did not wake up. The other white coat nodded to the wolf men and they punched me in the stomach and I felt my breath leave my system. After two or three weeks of having my DNA spliced I still am not quite used to having air sacs.

After the wolf men had fully strapped me to the table, the remaining white coat smiled evilly; he pulled out a specialized wet suit and nodded to the wolf men.

"Hey, idiot, I am part bird, not part fish. I don't swim for a living." That quip earned me a slap across the face from the white coat.

"Shut up, you insignificant piece of trash," the white coat snarled.

After about forty-five minutes of much struggle - on my part, anyway - the white coat managed to put the wet suit on me. I was not too happy about it, as the wet suit was a size or two too small. The white coat nodded to the two wolf men and they unfastened me from the table, whereupon I attempted to fight off the wolf men, but again to no avail. Besides, the wet suit partially constricted my movements. The wolf men dragged me to another room with nothing but a large tank. It looked sorta like a human cloning vat complete with the creepy green liquid. The wolf men decided to make life easy on themselves and grabbed a sedative from a nearby cabinet. The last thing that I felt was the prick of a needle against my skin.

*Max POV*

We decided to head quickly towards the School located within Death Valley. Iggy was not holding up too well; after his parents attempted to use him to get rich and famous, he was not big on the whole family idea, so Byron was a big deal to him since Byron was the one who decided to 'join' our family. And by 'join' I mean that the traitor Jeb, forced the decision onto Byron after everything that I put him through in order to guard our secret from him at the time.

"_C'mon, let's go_!" Iggy roared above the wind. See what I mean? Iggy is going to stop at nothing to save his brother.

Fang's plan involved stealth, Nudge was going to hack into the security system and disable it. We would then sneak in without fear of seeing seen. Iggy would keep a lookout using his super hearing and Fang would have point because of his invisibility.

*Byron POV*

I awoke really surprised because I was _in_ the tank, except I had a feeling that they were not trying to clone me because I could feel nothing. No taste, touch, smell, sound. They tied a blindfold around my eyes so my sight was useless too.

I lay there for endless minutes, waiting for something to happen. I was expecting pain, and a lot of pain, no less. That's all the white coats had done to me over the past few days and I was expecting more of it.

So you can imagine how surprised I was when I heard Max's voice.

"Bryon, what're you doing?" Her voice was full of distaste.

I started, somehow expecting to see Max's familiar face appear in front of me. It sounded like she was right there, right next to me in the tank. Why did she sound so disgusted? Maybe it was because I'd been captured so easily.

"I'm in a tank, Max," I mumbled. "Let me out."

"Why should I?" she sneered. "You're useless. You can hardly fly. As if you'll ever be a good addition to the Flock."

I was stunned. "What? What're talking about? Why are saying that?"

"Isn't it obvious?" It was Fang's voice, quiet and full of resentment. "We don't want you."

"So why did you come?" I demanded. "To make fun of me?"

"You actually thought we liked you?" Angel's voice was high-pitched with disbelief.

Gazzy laughed. "Yeah, right. You're not like us."

"You weren't born the way we were," Nudge put in. "You'll never fit in. you're stupid and useless, Bryon."

Their words stung me like sharp knives. What were they saying? Desperately, I called out, "Iggy? What's going on? I don't understand - "

"Shut up, Bryon." Iggy's voice, sharp with hatred, struck me the hardest. "You ruined everything. You think I wanted a brother? It's bad enough having horrible parents, and then you came along. You can't try to be one of us. You just aren't. You're more of a freak than the rest of us."

"Ig...gy..." My voice came out as a whisper. "Please..."

"I've hated you all along. Who could like you?" His voice turned to a sneer. "You're useless and clumsy, stupider than dirt. You can't keep up with us, you'll never be as good as us."

I'd known that all along, but I thought they'd accept me...

"You thought we'd accept you?" said Angel, reading my thoughts. "Hah! You're brainless."

"Stop it, guys..." They were just playing a joke on me, right? But even if they were...Iggy would never say such words to me. Pain broke my heart. They hated me. They really hated me.

"That's right," said Angel in satisfaction.

"He finally got it?" asked Nudge.

"What a relief," Max sneered. "We don't want you back Bryon. Stay there and rot in the School."

Anger boiled up inside me. "_Fine!_ I hated you guys, too! I don't care what you think! Leave me alone! I hate you!"

Suddenly, their faces burst to life in front of me. It was like my blindfold was removed, but I still felt it pressed against my eyes. Max rushed at me, smirking and twisting around to kick me in the ribs. I felt my breath come out of me with a _whoosh_ and I slammed backward. There was a wall behind me. Why was there a wall?

Fang, silent and deadly, came forward and dealt a heavy blow to my collarbone. I cried out in pain, and attempted to retaliate with a wild throw of my own. But Fang dodged it easily, ducking his head and sweeping his long leg underneath mine. I tripped, sprawling to the floor.

Then I was at the mercy of Gazzy and Angel. The two kicked and punched me with a surprising amount of force, snickering all the while. Max looked on, laughing in delight.

I struggled to my feet, glowering in rage at the leader of the Flock. "Go to hell, Max!"

"As long as you aren't there!" she yelled, aiming a roundhouse kick at me. I noticed and caught her ankle, twisting it around until she screamed in pain. I laughed.

"How does that feel?" I was sure I looked like a mess, and it felt like I was bleeding in every inch of my body. But I still drew a vast amount of satisfaction from Max's shriek. I twisted her ankle until I heard a wonderful _crack_, telling me it was broken. I dropped her foot and she sagged to the ground. Fang bent swiftly to cradle her, shooting me a horrible glare.

"Hey, Bryon."

Iggy's sightless gaze was locked on me. Then he punched me with an astonishing amount of speed and strength and I heard a few of my ribs cracked.

But that didn't stop me from grabbing hold of my brother's hair and yanking. He cried out, pleading for me to stop when I tore out handfuls of his hair. Stupid Iggy. Stupid Flock. They could all burn in hell, their hair yanked from their roots and their wings all plucked free of feathers. I would bring them pain, and much pain at that.

Nudge jumped on me from behind, then, and pulled me off of Iggy. Angrily, I turned around to kick the stupid kid away. She danced out of range, but couldn't dodge the hand that flew toward her to grab her arm. I threw her toward Gazzy and Angel, who both skipped away from their 'sister'.

I felt pure hatred for the Flock. I would kill them. I didn't care. They didn't want me. All this time, they'd been horrible to me. They deserved it. If only some machine gun would pop up in front of me, so I could shoot their brains out. That would save me a lot of trouble.

*Max POV*

Our plan went smoothly, which was surprising since we'd never considered using any other option than violence before. Nudge disabled the security in a matter of minutes, and soon we were all piling into the ventilation shafts and crawling on our hands and knees through them. It was a huge pain, having to check every single room to see if Bryon was in them, but it worked out in the end.

About forty-five minutes later, Fang opened one of the ceiling tiles to check the next room. I heard his whisper, "He's here."

I nodded, and motioned for him to lower the younger kids into the room. As Fang dropped Angel and Gazzy, I told Iggy, "Okay, I want you to help Bryon wherever you can. I promise we won't leave him behind."

He gave a tense nod, his sightless eyes determined.

Fang leaped into the room after Nudge, and I followed. Iggy was last, landing catlike on the floor.

Before us, taking up the majority of the room, was a huge tank filled with ominous-looking green liquid. Inside floated Bryon, in a wet suit. He was completely still.

"Angel, stay by the door and tell us if anyone is coming," I ordered. "Gazzy, you stay with her. Nudge, come here and work your magic with the controls."

Nudge bounced over to the control panel, pressing several buttons quickly. Then the tank started to drain. Once it was completely empty, she clicked another button and the door swung open.

Immediately, Iggy was in the tank and helping up Bryon. Bryon was groaning, but his eyes weren't open yet.

"Get him out of the wet suit, Igs," I called. "Fang, get back in the shaft and help up Gazzy and Nudge. We need to scram."

Fang nodded sharply. I turned to watch tensely as Iggy unzipped the suit and supported a gasping Bryon. Carefully, he heaved him out of the tank.

Bryon was muttering something, his voice slurred. "_...every last one of you. I'll...rip it all..._"

Trying not to be too bothered by that, I took Bryon's other arm and helped him toward the shaft. "Hey, Bryon. Can you hear me? We're getting out of here, so don't - "

Then Bryon's fist flew up and connected with my chin. I stumbled away, suppressing the urge to swear. "What the heck? Bryon, what are you - "

"_Max_!" Bryon growled. His eyes slightly unfocused, he aimed a powerful kick at my stomach. I dodged.

"What's he doing?" I hissed.

Iggy was forced to jump away when Bryon nearly clubbed him on the head. "I don't know!" He lowered his voice urgently. "Bryon! It's me, Iggy! Your brother! C'mon, listen!"

But Bryon was not listening. He was launching an impressive roundhouse kick at Iggy. Iggy caught his ankle and lowered it to the ground. "Don't, Bryon! Who do you think we are? The School?"

"I hate you!" Bryon hissed. His eyes were suddenly sharp and clear and his voice was no longer slurred. He knew exactly what was going on around him. And he wasn't stopping.

Bryon raised his fist to hit me, but a shadow dropped behind him. Then Bryon slumped to the ground.

"Let's move," said Fang, bending to pick up the unconscious Bryon. I let out my breath, relieved Fang had managed to knock him out in time.

"He's been brainwashed," Angel whispered. Her blue eyes were wide. "He thinks we hate him. And he hates us!"

I stared at her. "What?"

"But I can reverse it!" she said breathlessly. "I think I can!"

"You think?" said Iggy skeptically. He obviously didn't want to take chances with his brother.

"Let me come near him," Angel suggested. She didn't wait for an answer; she walked forward until she was touching Bryon's forehead with her small hand. She took a deep breath. Her eyebrows knit in concentration.

Then the door slammed open and a hulking form came in. The features were already shifting, transforming into ones more wolf than man. A wolfish grin spread across the man's face. His muscles bulged under his black suit.

"Whatcha doin', kiddies?"


End file.
